The Life and Death of Alan Sutler
by The-Enclave-86
Summary: Willing to fight to the death. Willing to live a life of constant toil. Willing to make the hard choices. For their families, for their country and for the future. Some would call them the heroes... but most call them the Enclave. Life through the Enclave as Alan Sutler.
1. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 1

**5th August, 2238.**

 **ENCLAVE Oil Rig, Deck 5, Basic Training Quarters**

This morning Sutler had kissed his mom goodbye and marched into imprisonment, eight gruelling weeks of boot-camp. He'd past the tests for the enlistment a few months ago, it'd been held off for two years until there were enough young people of sufficient ability to be trained and the year had finally come. He looked around the room, some of the boys here were 17 and others 18, having had to wait years for the chance to be trained to be a soldier. He'd been given a 15 second haircut and a pair of BDU's before being drilled into the boot camp quarters on deck 4, told to stand to attention by a bunk and wait. The room itself was like any other on the Oil Rig, a cramped room with a grated floor and dark metal walls, lit softly by glowing blue fluorescent's whilst the ceiling was a track of hanging conduits for pipes, wires and what-ever else was needed to keep the ENCLAVE running. The loudspeaker on the wall was ticking, once a second, usually the Oil Rig was loud enough to drown out the ticking but here, with all twelve boys stood ram-rod still and silent, the electronic tick was drilling into his head, almost slowing down time as he was made aware of every second passing.

He flicked his eyes to his extreme left and right at the other boys, another kid by his bed, his new bunkmate, stood taller than him with silvery-blonde hair and a strong jaw. He looked familiar, everyone in the Enclave did really, one of the upper-deck lot Sutler reckoned. The boy saw him looking and looked back, his grey eyes so piercing that Sutler looked away and stared ahead again at the blank wall ahead. Along the wall was a great mural depicting American serviceman from the Great Revolution of 1776 through World War II, to the Sino-American War and finally to the Enclave; besides the antiquated suit of T51b clasping a smoking minigun was the figure of the modern US Army Soldier standing tall in a suit of Advanced Power Armour, plasma rifle resting lazily against their shoulder as they looked out from the Oil Rig to the mainland. The door at the other end of the room slid open and a trooper in APA smartly marched through the opening and stepped aside.

"Eyes left!" He bellow and, on command, the recruits swivelled on their heels to face the doorway as another trooper stepped through, hands clasped behind his back. "Stand to attention!"

Everyone tried to stand stiller and taller, swaying on their heels. The man in APA marched down the length of the bunks before turning at the end of the room to march along again, pausing in the centre of the room to face them all.

"Eyes right!" Again they turned to face the man, spotting the three chevrons embossed on his arm.

"My name," he boomed, "is Sergeant Hillenkoetter, spelled B-A-S-T-A-R-D, and for duration of your training you will treat every word I say, every command I give, as though it came from the mouth of President Richardson himself! Do you understand me recruits?"

"Aye aye, sir," they yelled in response.

"Outstanding, you!" He pointed one of his armoured gauntlets at a recruit on the far end. "Identify yourself!"

"Recruit Roscoe Spencer sir," the kid shouted back.

He went down the line, eventually getting to the silvery-blonde boy besides Sutler.

"Recruit Augustus Autumn sir," the kid said in a think drawl.

Sutler held his breath in contempt, he had been right about Autumn, it had become a trend amongst the upper-deckers recently to affect pseudo accents of their original ancestor's state and this Autumn boy spoke in a thick dixie accent that grated on his ears. He scowled to himself.

"Autumn eh?" Sergeant Hillenkoetter said mockingly," Why, I do declare," his words laced with mocking pleasure; he returned to his usual bellow however. "I hope you don't expect daddy to come and save down here, there is here but cold steel and pain youth and if you can't live without plush-carpets and soft-music I will drill you out of this man's army and up to daddy's apartment to see the shame on his face myself. Do you I make myself clear recruit?"

"Yes sir," Autumn responded, his accent dulled with a notably sour hue.

"Next, what's your name?"

"Recruit Alan Sutler sir," Sutler, each syllable soaked in pride.

"Sutler eh," Hillenkoetter repeated bemused. "Son of Caleb Sutler then no doubt, KIA in 2236?"

"Yes sir," Sutler said back, his teeth gritted involuntarily.

"I remember your father," the Sergeant replied, a note of genuine sincerity breaching the tough sergeant routine, but it didn't last. "He was and died a hero and until you prove otherwise you are a stain on his memory, on his sacrifice and on his honour. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes sir,"

The sergeant's eyes flared for a moment and his mouth curled into a wicked smirk.

"I can see the hatred in your eyes youth," he said, yelling with gleeful malice. "Save it for the gooks and the muties, let it fuel your soul… and just maybe you'll pull through the next few months of pain. Alright next!"

Hillenkoetter proceeded through the recruits, grilling them all for their perceived failures and imperfections before turning again to face the group from before the mural.

"Once again," he began," another sorry shower of recruits stand before me, mere children whom I will mould into men or drive out. Eyes right recruits!"

Everyone turned right to face a large board on the wall besides the door that they had entered through what seemed like a long time ago. The elegant board, embossed with ornate lettering, read 'USJF Code of Conduct'.

"You will read it out verbatim," Hillenkoetter ordered.

"I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life," everyone recited in unison. "If necessary I am willing to die for my country, for my fellow servicemen and for the people of the United States of America. I will never forget that I am fighting for the American people, our way of life and for the principles that protect our nation. I will trust in my President and in my country. America prevails!"

"Outstanding," Hillenkoetter said with a grin, he smartly stepped over to the board, removed it from the wall and tucked it under his arm. "Now, anyone who cannot recite entirely your code will do mandatory PT tomorrow morning before the scheduled PT. Now get to sleep."

And with those final words, he marched out of the room and the lights went out. There was a moment of confused silence before the recruits decided it was safe to fall out and get ready for bed. Sutler slid between the white sheets and closed his eyes, silently repeating in his head what he has just read out before a head appeared, upside down, from the top bunk.

"So you're Alan Sutler," Augustus Autumn asked, his drawl no less pronounced. Sutler kept his eyes closed and tried to ignore him. The boy smirked. "Names Augustus Autumn sport."

Sutler winked an eye open to look at him, he had his hand extended.

"Yeah," Sutler said gruffly, taking his hand and giving it a tight squeeze; Autumn looked slightly perturbed but accepted the handshake. "Who are you calling sport?"

"Why, you I do declare."

"Are you really going to keep this shit up?" Sutler asked, brows furrowed.

"Why what-ever do you mean?"

"This Dixieland bullshit, fuck's sake you haven't even been to Virigina."

"Sport, the Autumn's have a noble heritage that I am beholden to continue."

Sutler scoffed and closed his eyes again.

"Fucking upper-deckers…"

"Ah yes," Autumn responded, the sneer in his voice magnified immensely by his adopted twang.

"The infamous Alan Sutler sharp wit, a whole lot of vulgar language and class-hatred. Why I do declare if that was not the reason young Danielle Ambrose dumped your sorry ass."

"What the fuck would you know about that?" Sutler asked sharply, sitting bolt up-right and staring right into Autumn's eyes."

"Why my dear Sutler, I…"

"Recruits keep quiet and go to sleep!" It was the Sergeant stood in the doorway.

"I'm going to beat your ass in sparing," Sutler whispered as Autumn's head withdrew back into his bunk.

"Why I do declare that I look forward to seeing that," Autumn said back, his voice etched with smug self-assuredness.


	2. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 2

**September, 2238**

 **ENCLAVE Oil Rig, Deck 5**

What followed on from their brief induction into the world of boot-camp was a week of physical agony, Sutler had never been very fit and was honestly convinced that he'd only been accepted because of his father's service. He could run fast and far but that was about it, when it came to strength training, the hours and hours of push-ups he accumulated, he was hopeless and left a sweaty wheezing mess sucking air through the grates in the flooring before he could stomach himself to stand up again. Autumn was perfect of-course, a fair runner and a keen boxer he trounced everyone when it came to anything involving his arms. Even in their scant hour of leisure time before lights-out at nine, there was Autumn beating seven-shades out of the punching bag before being ordered to sleep. He had an enormous physical drive and an appetite for violence that almost made Sutler respect him.

He was poor at learning dogma though, Sutler's flicker of a grin was almost a mile-wide on the second day of training when he had perfectly recited the USJF code and Autumn, barely getting past the first line, was made to do a full circuit of PT with the other few failures whilst belting out the code at the top of his lungs. It was a small and short victory however when on the third day, whilst Sutler had lain gasping against the cold steel flooring, unable to move, Hillenkeotter had made everyone else continue doing push-ups until 'that feeble sack of shit is able to get off the god-damn floor'; they'd managed 20 – almost half what they had already done – before Sutler had finally been able to right himself in a woozy standing position of attention before a round of sit-ups were to commence. He'd been largely shunned since, resolved merely to reading books on the terminal until one of the others had told him to move at-which point he would, he was ashamed of his failure and burden at-first, but when they took his scant reading time from him his demeanour became icy to all of them.

Apparently, his mother had told him in her first response intra-mail after the first week, this was just "boys culture" and if they'd had pre-war schooling in the Enclave it'd have been excised years ago, but they didn't have pre-war schooling on the Enclave and they hadn't work it out earlier so Sutler felt the brunt of it. After two weeks of isolation in the bootcamp quarters they'd been released for the weekend.

"I hate them mom," Sutler said, back in his comfortable blue jumpsuit. "They all treat me like nothing 'cause I can't do a few push-ups… I can recite the code back-to-back, list all the Presidents, all the security acts..."

She looked at him across the table, Lily-Ann Sutler was a dumpy women in her mid-forties, with kind eyes and a wide mouth that smiled at him across the table with an "its kid's problems but act sympathetic" look to her. Sutler didn't catch it though, feeling her hand gently pat his shoulder he wished that he didn't have to go back to the damned, five-room prison that was his life now.

"There, there," she cooed softly, honestly she was tired and it showed,she'd spent all day in another layer of clothing and sweaty gloves manipulating uranium in a glovebox only to come home to her son whining about trivial problems. "At the end of training you'll able be as tight as atoms I guarantee, that's what they train you for, not to hate each-other. You don't think a unit comes together through pettiness do you?"

"Well no mom but…"

"And you trust your Sergeant?"

"Of-course, he's a Sergeant," Sutler said matter-of-factly.

"Then let him do his job, he'll sort it all out son I promise you. Your father," she looked up at the black and white photo of him on the wall, almost like an older version of Alan Sutler himself with his long face, prominent chin and nose. "Well he went through all of these years ago back when we were courting and he managed it just fine in the end," she pulled him closer into a tight embrace, her solemn stare reflecting against the dulled metal walls over Sutler's shoulder "He was a good soldier your father," she murmured, more to herself than Sutler, "and he loved you very much Alan, he'd be proud of you… you have to do him proud Alan."

"Of-course I will mom," Sutler replied sheepishly.

She widened her smile again.

"I know you will, we always said him and I, that you'd be our salvation. You'd be one who'd put the Sutler's back on track again. After we've reclaimed the mainland you promise you'll give me a room in your colonial mansion?"

"Of-course," Sutler said with a laugh. "Of-course I will, once we're on the mainland."

"Once we're on the mainland," she repeated wistfully. "But you'll need to be soldier to be on the mainland okay, they aren't going to send you to reclaim the mainland if I have to pull some strings with Dr Murray and get you into the AEC are they?"

"No mom."

"Then go back there and do me and your father proud, for a few months kids will be kids. But you'll grow and bond I promise you Alan. They're just like you really, scared and missing their mothers… or parents I suppose."

"They're this one guy there mom," Sutler retorted now animated. "Augustus Autumn," he recited, mimicking Autumn's southern drawl.

"They'll always be one," she conceded. "But the rest will be just fine in the long-run I promise you."

Maybe they would, but for the meantime Sutler remained alone for the most part, watching the others sourly. By week four they were doing target practice and, finally, Sutler could come into his own. He wasn't a natural, not like in the old pre-war holotapes, but he was pretty good and had a keen eye. The self-recharging rifle was heavy and Sutler compensated well for it, but after a while his arms started to ache and his shooting slipped.

"Your not bad Sutler," Hillenkoetter said, even whilst giving out his scant praise he spoke loud and fast. "Might be some future for you with a rapid capacitance weapon, something light." He'd trailed off then and moved onto the next range.

But eventually however the day came, the day of sparing and CQC training when Sutler's anrgy barb on his first night at boot camp was coming back to haunt him.

"I'd like to be up against young Alan Sutler sir," Autumn had quickly chimed in. "He looks like he's fast and nimble, might be something for us both to learn in such an exercise."

Hillenkoetter nodded his approval. "I agree youth," he said, a smile curling at his lips. "Definitely learning experience to be had I think." He grinned again, he knew of-course of lingering animosity, perhaps he thought adversity would make both parties stronger, or perhaps he was just a sadist. Either way, kitted out with a helmet, gloves and gumshield, Sutler stood before Autumn in the ring, they're gloves pressed together. He tried valiantly but to limited avail, the jabs from the junior boxer came fast and hard. Sutler himself got a few in, including a solid glancing blow against Autumn's head, but within no time he was winded and gasping on the floor again.

"Get up," Hillenkoetter yelled from the sides. "Remember your code, you do not surrender to your enemy."

Sutler did as he was told, clambering to his feet for the next round and again it ended with him on the floor. Autumn was panting above him, nimbly jostling from foot to foot.

"Come on Sutler," Autumn taunted above him. "Can't get up, that's what I heard," there was a chuckle from the crowd. "That's what D…"

Sutler shot up before Autumn could react, striking him in the nose and sending him recoiling. Autumn grinned back at him.

"Fuck you," Sutler panted.

In the end, Autumn won of-course, but Sutler lasted more rounds than any of the other matches. He wouldn't, couldn't, stay down against this kid and his damn smug attitude against him. It had been for Hillenkoetter to call it off, telling Sutler to lose the gloves and get a shower. He let the water cool him, but he smiled all the while; he'd stood up to him at-least, not let him be the one to determine the winner of that fight.

It'd clearly played on Autumn too, returning after the sparing he was sat on Sutler bunk.

"So, all freshened you now sport," he asked with a sly grin.

"Eat my ass," Sutler snapped back. "And get off my bunk."

"Why I do declare, Autumn said, drawing himself to his full height as he stood up. "We've already determined that you can't make me do that, haven't we sport?"

Sutler merely scowled at him.

"Not the first time I hear… that you haven't been able to get back to bed I mean," Autumn drawled smugly. The other boys, who'd came around to listen, laughed amongst themselves.

"Will you stop bring that damn girl up?" Sutler hissed.

"Why, touchy subject sport?"

"I'll show you a touchy subject," Sutler said, raising a fist.

"Why I do declare," Autumn said, his grin now verging on open laughter. "I did not know your bread was buttered that side sport; mind you what can you expect from the son of a uranium pusher, bet your half mutant."

"I'm going to fucki'…" he'd made to go at Autumn but felt arms tug around his own, pulling him back. Before anything else could transpire, Hillenkoetter appeared in the doorway.

"What in Sam is going on here recruits!" He bellowed. "Early lights out and get to bed all of you on the double."

Sutler felt the arms holding him release and Autumn hopped nimbly up to his bunk.

"Good night sport," he said with a sly grin before disappearing, leaving Sutler scowling the space were he had been just moments before.


	3. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 3

**OCTOBER, 2238**

 **YUKON TERRITORY, OCCUPIED CANADA (SIMULATION)**

Today was the day, the day when they'd see if all they're training so-far had paid off. They'd spent the previous week in readiness training, learning how to handle the old ballistics weapons of the pre-war U.S. Army: cocking, loading, recharging magazines, recoil, the list of minutia that came with handling "period fire-arms" was as long as the mainland was far and just as inscrutable. Sutler still couldn't manage rifles effectively, his arms tiring of their weight - now combined with recoil - meant his combat effectiveness took a nose-dive after a few minutes of sustained fire. He preferred his side-arm frankly. But more than handling period, "conventional", firearms was the transition to the new environment. Living on the Oil Rig, the closest one came to cold was an ice-water and to wind standing beneath an air-vent; in the Simtek pods one went from the comfort and warmth of home to the freezing Arctic tundra in the blink of an eye, like steeping through a sheet of freezing water. Most importantly of all though was the threat of pain, real pain. When he'd been a boy, Sutler had been playing Vertibirds with the other kids on Deck 11, running around the corridors with arms outstretched mimicking the sound of beating pistons; he'd tripped and fallen on the grated floor, falling face first into the floor and leaving the infirmary some days later with a jaw which, to this day, still didn't properly line up with the rest of his skull. That had hurt. But the prospect of taking a 7.62mm to the face now haunted him more than that did.

Right now the recruits stood, huddled together before a nest of tents whilst Hillenkoetter, anachronistic in his Advanced Power Armour, stood before them.

"Listen up recruits," he bellowed. "Yukon, Canada. After we annexed it from the cowardly Canadians, whom we were defending from communist aggression, became a new front in the war to liberate Alaska from the gooks. 80 klicks north of our position," he roughly indicated the mountains to their north, the Chinese have a dozen 130mm guns that are going to pound our boys into dust if we're going to assault their position. In five hours a Chinese convoy is going to resupply. Your job is to take that convoy out. Since we haven't put you through map training yet," he trailed off, realising he'd stumbled upon a chance for some "character development". "Because none of you have demonstrated even the faintest ability to lead a squad and warrant such training!" He peeled off and returned to his usual bark rather than his directed verbal assault. "We're going to give you a head-start, ain't that nice of me? If you check your Pipboy's you'll notice that you have a map with real-time indication of your position, that of the convey and the location of the ambush point that we have determined you will use. This is a test of your fighting and organisational ability, God forbid we expect you to be able to read at this early stage. Right," his fun over he became suddenly more businesslike. "I'm making two of you honoury corporals for this mission, if you've checked your sleeves you already know who I've chosen. Drexler, Spencer, split the rest between you and get on with the mission. That's all."

He made to turn away before Autumn called after him.

"That's it sir?"

Hillenkoetter merely stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"This is a test of your combat ability private, not a cake walk. We'll be watching you. Oh," he stopped and turned. "Pain is on for this simulation but death, obviously is not, you're meant to take this seriously recruits. I remember before we had this "smart" kid, got shot and decided to take a 10mm to the face courtesty of his own side-arm to escape the simulation." He paused. "Now let me tell you, after a few laps of the entire Oil Rig he was wishing he could do the same in real-life. You get shot, you take it. Teach you not to get shot again. Understand?"

They responded in the affirmative and with that he disappeared, literally fading away from the simulation entirely to leave the huddle of boys to organise their fate. After some discussion the squad was split, contention only arrising when Spencer had claimed both Sutler and Autumn for the same team.

"You can't have Dixie and BNM on the same team, Sutler will put a slug in him the second his back is turned."

BNM, billy-no-mates, it was a curious position for Sutler to be in since he both wore the name with pride and shame. Nobody other than himself knew what Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori meant but at the same time it was a lonely existence, he missed his friends back on Deck 11 who'd all become apprentices instead of soldiers.

"Thanks dick," Sutler said coldly.

* * *

They'd been marching for an hour, the snowy ground alien and unyielding. Again it was another transition for the recruits, uneven ground was bad enough but this land was blanketed in a thick sheet of snow up to their shins that they had to wad through as it soaked into their boots and socks. The cold, above all else, was what would doom them it seemed. They encountered no Chinese hostiles on the way to their objective, there was no civilisation to be seen out here in the tundra worth guarding and they'd definitely have gotten lost if not for their maps. Eventually reaching the point of divergence they stopped and huddled together.

"Alright," Spencer said to everyone. "We're splitting up here. Drexler is taking his fire-team down this hill to lay an ambush at ground level, we'll proceed along this hill to the ridge overlooking the road."

They nodded in-agreement, the planned seemed sound. Ambush from two planes, two directions of fire, would catch the Chinese off-guard. It was only later that things would go awry.

"Chinese," Drexler radioed through. "Around half-a-dozen so far, we've been made and are returning fire. Over."

"Shit," Spencer cursed. "Roger that Delta, we're continuing to the objective. Over and out."

They could hear the gunfire between Drexler's men and the Chinese from their position, heavy concentrated gunfire echoing through the snowy mountain wilderness. The gunfire war distinct, the rattling thud of the Chinese rifles versus the controlled bursts of the Americans; the audible difference in only made it more obvious when the sounds of the American's R-91 became less frequent against the Chinese onslaught.

"This is Autumn," eventually came the call back. He was hurt, audible wincing with pain and speaking rapidly through heavy breathing. "I've taken one in the arm, Corporal Drexler and the rest are KIA. I've got a position behind some rocks so I can hold out for now. We're looking at close to a dozen hostiles here. Requesting assistance over."

Spencer listened closely. You couldn't see his face through the balaclava; his eyes, darting around behind his goggles were the only insight into what-ever he was thinking.

"Sir," Sutler asked. "What are we doing?"

"We're moving on and proceeding with the objective, it'll be tough but if we can lay down enough fire on the forward vehicle we can block the convey and take them out. We have the height advantage, we'll manage."

"But sir," Sutler said back, louder and more indignant. "We've got a man down, we can't just leave him behind that's not how it's done."

"If we fail this," Spencer retorted harshly. "It's double-PT for a week, I ain't doing that cos Drexler marched straight into a fire-fight. We are not failing this mission." He saw the look of anger in Sutler eyes. "It's just a simulation Sutler, he isn't going to die. Why do you care anyway? It's Autumn."

"Sergeant Hillenkoetter said to take this seriously," Sutler replied angrily, dropping all formality now. "Would you leave a compatriot behind like this in the field."

"Well no..."

"Then you can't do it here, mission be damned."

"Sutler," Spencer said firmly. "I am leading what's left of this damn show and I say that we proceed to the objective, we cannot fail."

Sutler got up, slung his rifle over his shoulder and turned around.

"Where are you going Private Sutler!?"

"To get our man back, you go do the mission if it's so Gad-damn important to you."

"We can't do this without you Sutler... get back here! Sarge is going to have you when I tell him about this!"

"Eat my ass," Sutler called back, already retracing the footsteps back to the point where they had split up.

It took him fifteen minutes to get back to the point, the gunfire from Autumn and the Chinese still rattling every now and then and confirming Sutler's hopes that Autumn could hold out long enough. It was a bitter march, almost comical as he hopped from one foot to another through the snow. He couldn't rely on his map now, as it only showed the way to the actual mission objective, reaching the footsteps he followed that taken by Drexler and his men early down the hill and towards the gunfire. He made his way down the icy bank with abandon and was rewarded for his gusto by tripping and riding the rest of the way down courtesy of his ass. The sounds were even closer now and he unslung his rifle, pressing it tightly into his shoulder before moving forwards. Eventually he could see them, cut down in a large patch of crimson snow were Drexler and the rest of his men. Though Sutler knew that they weren't dead, the sight of them made his blood run cold. Drexler himself, identified through his Corporal's stripes, lay on his back, his hands in the air in a a grotesque death rattle. Autumn lay with his back to a mound of rocks, blood was pouring from his upper torso. He looked over feebly at Sutler but made no sounds. It wasn't until a bullet wizzed past Sutler that he realised he'd been made and feel immediately to the floor. His balaclava became cold and moist in the snow and he tried to wipe his goggles on his sleeve before crawling over to Autumn's position. Up close he looked even worse, blood continued to leak from the open wounds in his upper body, the armour caved inwards and stabbling into his chest. His face, beneath the helmet, was so pale as to be almost indistinguishable from the white of his uniform.

"Where's the rescue squad?" He managed feebly.

"It's just me."

"Sutler? Why?"

"Bastards aren't taking this seriously," Sutler spat back venomously. "They're going to take on the objective and leave you here."

"No I mean why..."

He was cut off when more gunfire exploded over the top of the rock, the Chinese had been making their way towards them. Sutler took his rifle popping over the top of the rock to fire off a few bursts, he managed to get one; the figure of a Chinese soldier falling back but leaving no blood nor even a corpse as he simply dissolved from existence in a bluish light.

"Can you still shoot?" Sutler asked him.

"I can't move sport," he said, with a sudden burst of life he took off his helmet and pulled the balaclava off to spit out a mouthful of blood. He truly was pale, his eyes wild with pain now. "I can fire blind over this rock, maybe give you some suppressing fire. It's all I've been able to manage."

"Right," Sutler said, a slight tremor hung in his words. "I'm going to engage and I need that fire. Don't let me down Autumn."

"Sure thing sport."

"Ready? Go!"

Sutler snapped up from cover, an uncontrolled explosion of noise to his right indicating Autumn was firing. So did he, the bullets making soft thuds as they landed in the snow rather than any of the encroaching Chinese whom had dropped to the ground. He got another, lying down in the snow it made straight between his eyes before the body vanished in light. He was shot, a Chinese bullet slamming into his shoulder and out the other side. The pain was almost blinding, he fell back into the snow, the wound going cold as it made contact with the snow which turned crimson.

"Fuck!" Sutler yelled, he screamed in pain. He couldn't help it. It was pain like nothing he had even been capable of conceiving before. Never-the-less, with his one remaining arm, he positioned the rifle on the rock itself and fired, using a sharp point on the stony face as a fulcrum to pivot around. It didn't last much longer as a bullet landed in his chest and he fell back into the snow. He was trying to shriek but couldn't make much of a sound, the blood pooling in his mouth choking him as he feebly pulled at the balaclava with his good hand.

"Sutler!" He heard something yell as the white clouds above came all encompassing, melding with the snow on his goggles and filling the sky with blinding white light.

He awoke with a scream, cut short as his head smashed off the top of the simulation pod and he fell back in his chair. As the pod slid open he rolled out onto the floor, wretched violently and threw-up. When he had finished he looked up to see Drexler and his men all seperate against the walls of the room, shaking, staring ahead blanking. Drexler himself had collapsed to the floor, his legs crossed tightly and was crying softly at the shame of it all, cradling his head in his hands. Sutler sniffed loudly, even despite the vomit there was an odd smell of ammonia in the air. Autumn wasn't long in coming out either, as his pod opened him fell out and crashed against the nearby wall, dry heaving whilst making an attempt to pace his breathing.

* * *

"What the hell was that Sutler!" Hillenkoetter bellowed at him. He was in the Sergeant's office, now slightly recovered physically, but withering mentally, beneath both a verbal onslaught but also the rage that seemed to emanate from him. "You disobeyed a direct order from a superior. Autumn giving you hand-jobs now is that it? Because of you Spencer and his men were killed and the convey reached it's destination, you've just cost..." He paused to look at something on his computer. "Exactly 287 servicemen there lives on October the 3rd, 2069."

"Sir?"

"This happened youth," the Sergeant responded. "And they failed too but not because of this."

"It was a supposed to loose battle sir?" Sutler managed weekly. The Sergeant didn't answer him.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"They weren't taking it seriously," Sutler managed. "They were going to leave someone behind to die, we don't do that! Do we..." he added weakly.

"No," the Sergeant said, his tone cooler, he seemed to be caught between two states of mind; the Sergeant and Hillenkoetter the man. "Now you listen hear Sutler and listen good, cos I'm only saying this once," he'd reached a compromise, praised delivered in the tone of a dressing-down. "Whilst we all get a chance to fight for what we believe in we don't always get the chance to stand-up for it, you see the difference?"

Sutler nodded weakly.

"We take for granted that we are of one mind in this Army, this Enclave. Because we are. Therefore, when you refused to leave a man behind on principle...you did good youth." There was a brief pause. "But do not think that excuses you from double-PT tomorrow morning and do not disobey an order from a superior again. Do I make myself clear!"

"Sir yes sir!"

Sutler was pulling his boots off for bed, he felt tired even though he'd been effectively asleep in a chair for most of the day. Drained rather, mentally and emotionally. He still rubbed his chest unconsciously every now and then as though to reassure himself that he had not been shot and the thought of his own mouth full of blood still made him nauseous. Nobody had ate their dinner that night, even though tomorrow would be a ball-buster in-terms of physical exertion. He was nearly ready when Autumn came up to him.

"You never answered me back in the sim," he said meekly. "Why?"

"I told you," Sutler respond in a tone of equal awkwardness. "They weren't taking it seriously. We don't leave people behind."

"Is that all?"

"I..." the words caught in his throat. "I couldn't just walk away and leave you in pain could I? What kind of man," he shot a sour look at the others. "Would do that to a compatriot?"

"Oh," Autumn said simply. "Well thanks Alan."

He offered his hand, Sutler stood up to take it.

"What?" he said with a faint laugh. "No 'sport'?"

"Perhaps," Autumn smiled. "Perhaps my Southern Pride was becoming a-tad overbearing."

"Obnoxious," Sutler cut-in. "Fucking obnoxious."

"Well quite," Autumn laugh. Sutler himself managed a grin and they shook hands.


	4. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 4

**OCTOBER, 2238**

 **ENCLAVE Oil Rig, DECK 7, Canteen**

"So there I was," Sutler said, arms gesticulating wildly. "Snowy tundra like you wouldn't believe... remember when the boiler broke last year and we had cold showers?"

"Yeah," Isabella said, eyes wide with awe.

"Well imagine that but a thousand times worse and there's no escape. There's Autumn, pissing blood everywhere under siege by at-least twenty gooks and there's me on the top of this hill with my rifle. So I took aim and in a few seconds, three of them were dead in the snow." He mimed the action of aiming the rifle with his hands.

"That's amazing, your such a good shot," she cooed.

"Well," Sutler said in mock modesty, grinning like a loon. "I don't know about that but when..."

"Sutler," the call came from the doorway. Sutler turned to see Autumn stood there, he gave a curt nod with his head, indicating to come this way. Sutler jumped to his feet immediately and made to leave.

"Where are you going?" Isabella called after him, her voice hurt and steely.

"Soldier stuff, I'll catch you another time," he responded passively, trotting after Autumn into the corridor. He was already quite far ahead, walking with considerable speed. "What's going on Autumn?" Sutler asked after catching up, slowing to match his rapid pace.

"Time to make you a man boy, but we ain't got a lot of time so keep up."

"What exactly do you think I was trying to do," Sutler said indignantly, pointing back at the doorway to the canteen.

"You'll have time for that later," Autumn said with a grin. "This is real stuff, your Upper Deck initiation rite.

Sutler scowled suspiciously. "What exactly do you have in-mind Autumn? This better not be illegal."

"It's not illegal," he responded with a dismissive gesture. "Against the rules maybe.

"There's no difference Autumn... where are we going."

"I won't tell you till we're there, you'll puss out otherwise."

Continuing their pace, they navigated the labyrinth of corridors to the central elevator bank. Sutler's eyes widening slightly as Autumn pressed the button labelled "Deck 1". He'd never been on the upper decks before. When the lift opened however, the decor was very much the same, gun-metal corridors and the ever-present ticking PA system. As they moved through the level, Autumn became considerably more furtive, looking back over his shoulder, peering around corners and frequently giving Sutler directions to stop moving. Eventually they reached a narrow and deserted, dead end corridor at the end of which was a bulkhead door. Autumn look behind him again, before approaching the keypad beside it; typing in four number a lamp above the door turned green.

"We've been passing down the code to this door for one-hundred years and nobody's ever changed it," he said grinning. He opened the door with trepidation as it creaked on it's ancient, seldom used, hinges before stepping through a slight aperture and silently ushering Sutler inside. Sutler slid through the gap effortlessly and looked around the tiny room lit only by a grimy lamp that flickered yellow. Autumn closed the door and squeezed past Sutler to another door which he opened with slightly more bravado.

"Where the hell are we?" Sutler asked. "What is this about."

Opening the next door, Autumn hugged the wall and jabbed a thumb at the wall through the door.

"We're going topside Sutler."

Sutler went pale at the prospect.

"Topside Autumn..." he said weakly. "But... what if we get caught, or there's a weather alarm and we get stuck up there?"

"It's an observation post," Autumn retorted impatiently. "I've been up here before, just trust me. Now I'm going to climb up, when there's room get on the ladder and close the second door."

Sutler tried to protest but Autumn just shot him a withering look so Sutler acquiesced, pulling the heavy steel door closed and taking a few rungs of the ladder. Above him, Autumn had reached the top and with a mighty heave cranked the wheel around and pushed it open, a ray of dim sunlight came into the small shaft, Sutler almost loosing his grip as his hands jumped to shield his eyes.

"Fuck me," he yelled, regaining his footing. He looked up, Autumn was half-out of the hatch, hanging back from the ladder, his head tossed back and face frozen in tranquility as the light breeze ran across his face. He sighed contendly before clambering up and turning to offer Sutler his hand.

"Come on Alan."

Taking his hand Sutler was pulled up onto a small platform nestled on most sides by the windowless hulk of the Oil Rig, but dead ahead over a scant railing was a small part of the top-deck and beyond that the ocean. Even Sutler felt his cynicism fade away, it was like nothing he had ever seen before. Common sense soon prevailed however as he joined Autumn leaning against the railing.

"The air is funny out here," Sutler said nervously. "Like moist, and the sky is grey... is it going to rain?"

Topside activities were normally carried out in standard gear, however, if there was a chance of rain a weather warning was issued in-advance and everyone topside had to go and changed into hazmat gear for the duration, go through lengthy checks and decontamination afterwards. Just in-case.

"Don't worry so much Alan," Autumn said. "We're right by the hatch and there's a PA just down there." He indicated it casually without even looking. "We'll hear if there's a weather alert and it's not that the air is 'moist', it's that our air is stale and recycled. Now take one of these and just chill for once sport." Reaching into his pockets he pulled from each a unlabeled bottle of beer and handed one to Sutler before cracking the top off his own and taking a deep drink.

"Where'd you get these?" Sutler asked incredulously. "The rations gone up since the fire last month."

"Just call it an advantage of having a friend from the upper-decks," Autumn said with a grin as he popped the top from Sutler's beer. He took a drink, it was good beer, not like that they drunk down in the lower levels with a distinct sugary taste.

"You guys get better beer to?" Sutler said in mock disbelief.

"It's modeled on what the White House brewery used to make before the war, no honey of-course but some artificial sweetener... it does the job."

"Yeah I'll say," Sutler said gleefully taking another deep swig of the stuff before looking out across the ocean and then peering over the railing in-front of them. There were walkways between external buildings, more pipes of the nebulous purpose like everywhere else on the Oil Rig and lamps casting a faint, mottled yellow light as the sun set."How do you know we can't be seen from here?"

"The flight deck and most of the topside engineering is on the other-side of the super-structure," Autumn indicated the wall of dark metal behind them. "Nobody ever comes out this side.""

"Can we see the mainland from here?"

"Nah, it's over 175 miles away sport. We're looking north now anyway when America is too the east."

"I wonder what the Oil Rig looks like from the outside," Sutler said wistfully. "I can't wait to see that one-day. Funny how we've lived here our entire lives and never seen it... the world is fucked up."

"When we're soldiers we'll get our chance sport."

"I hope," Sutler growled. "I hope we get out on the mainland before was gas all the mutants, get to kill some ourselves before the Project is finished."

Autumn laughed, the Project was on everyone's minds. They'd been promising it's completion for years, but now the rhetoric actually seemed plausible. They were the "fortunate generation", those who'd be young when the Project was unleashed and would spear-head the reclamation of the mainland.

"I'm going to restore the family name Autumn," Sutler said, he said it as a matter indisputable fact. "Sutler's used to be a big name, give me a few decades and I'll be running the whole Enclave."

"That's what everyone says sport," Autumn said, clapping Sutler on the back. Sutler looked at him, the look on his face was patronising, he could see it, that of a man who could clearly feel the burning hatred inside Sutler and was trying to redirect the topic.

"I mean it Autumn, I'm going to go out there. Discover and name every abomination left standing by the virus and come back a hero. Dames love a hero," he added, grinning. "Just think what the world will be like when we're old men," he continued rapturously. "After we've tamed the mainland, when we're 60 in the 2280's, maybe sat on the porch of our new houses sipped a cold beer like now and reminiscing on all the glory we've accumulated..." He trailed off longingly.

"Iced tea," Autumn said with a shake of his head. "The only suitable drink for a cool summers eve on the porch is an iced tea with a slice of lemon."

"Yeah," Sutler scoffed. "And a cream white suit with one of those black ribbon ties I'm sure."

"I can't expect a Yankee to understand," Autumn said, it was clearly bait but Sutler couldn't help himself.

"I'm not a Yankee Autumn," he said. "My great-great-whatever was from New Hampshire but we're Oil Rig. You're family need to get off their high-horse."

"By family you mean my father..." Autumn said, Sutler should have read his tone but didn't.

"Your mom not buy into the Dixie shit then?"

"My mom... passed away when I was born."

Sutler felt an icy lump in his throat, not knowing what to do he sipped his beer before replying.

"Sorry man."

"It's alright sport," Autumn said, taking a drink himself. "It's not like you knew, was a long time ago anyway."

"To Mrs. Autumn," Sutler said, offering his beer in toast.

"To the future," Autumn said simply. "And that Iced Tea I owe you," he grinned and they downed what was left of their drinks. "The worlds our's Sutler, the mutants are gonna die and we'll."

It was then a that shrill klaxon interupted Autumn's remark before a slow, drawling voice came over the PA.

"Attention, attenion. A weather warning has been received. Black rain expected in..."

Sutler was stood ram-rod stiff when he heard a noise from behind him, turning to see Autumn lifting the hatch.

"Come on Sutler," Autumn said, genuine panic in his voice finally cresting his laid-manner. "It's only slow-Joe the announcer, not Richardson, you don't have to listen to him prattle on let's go!"

Sutler nodded and dove for the hatch as they scrambled through, hoping to make it back innocently into the corridor before the topside engineers came back through to swap into hazmat gear for the rain.


	5. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 5

**November, 2238**

The weeks of hellish basic training continued without pause, but now even Sutler was finding the gruelling PT somewhat more manageable, his growing physical capacity becoming etched and defined on his slender frame. Sergeant Hillenkoetter, secure in his position of authority become mellowed slightly, becoming as-much a mentor as a drill-sergeant. They now ran combat simulations once-a-week and often more than one and until they ran the Omaha Beach sim there had been no repeat of the total wipe-out that had occurred in Yukon. What little already remained of innate human squeamishness was stamped out; energy weapons weren't for the faint hearted and their effect on a human target was utterly horrific. After eight weeks in lockdown they'd been allowed freedom of access and egress to the sealed rooms on weekends and thus, it was that Alan Sutler say alone on his bunk, polishing away at the burnished alloy of his Wattz Training Pistol whilst Autumn had taken "some girl" to see the Rifle Drill teams down on Deck 3.

 _"Oh Mainlander, don't you run from me. I'm coming from the Oil Rig with my rifle on my knee."_ He sang merrily as he worked out the non-existent imperfections in the handguns glistening surface with a cloth.

The Wattz, civilian-issue, Laser Pistol, was a paltry weapon in truth, a mere sling-shot in the Enclave's vast arsenal and that a faction of mainlanders expended so much to acquire them was a popular joke among soldiers, "a Salvatore's Bargin". Fact was though, whilst his compatriots salivated over the prospect of wielding a L30 Gatling Laser or a Yuma Flatts Pulse Rifle, he didn't. There was something homely and almost honest about a pistol that tugged at something indescribable in his mind; when he used to play Troopers and Mutants down on Deck 11 he'd always pretended he had a pistol, not a rifle, and had always been laughed at for it. He smiled at the memory before smirking again at another idea; he looked around the barrack room. Everyone else was out on leave.

He reached across and grabbed his chest-rig hanging from the edge of his bed before slipping it loosely over his arms and stuffing the pistol into the holster before moving into the middle of the room. He stared down the length of it too the door on the other end, knees apart, his hand hovered over the pistol; in his head he counted the ticks coming from the PA speaker.

 _"One, two, three!"_

He grabbed the pistol grip, swinging it from the holster and twisting his body right to bring the gun in-line with his ribs. Classic quick-draw.

"Pew-pew mother-fucker," he said with a self-satisfied grin. It was only when trying to spin the pistol about his finger that his façade collapsed as the pistols sharp, polygonal, trigger guard made such a maneuverer impossible and the gun fell from his hands and scatted across the grated floor with the clattering of metal against metal.

"Fuck," he cursed, crossing the distance to the gun and examining with dismay the scratches across the barrel. He cursed again bitterly as the door opened and he wheeled around in panic, gun in-hand. Autumn stood in the doorway, his expression amused and supercilious. His eyes flicked to the gun Sutler was already trying to cram back into his rig.

"Don't shoot me sport," he said through his grin, feebly raising his hands in a mock gesture. "The Sam Hill are you doing boy?"

"Nothing… fuck off," he stammered, whipping of his rig and tossing it back onto his bunk. "How was the show anyway?"

"An impressive display of what fully-train soldiers can do when cooped up on an Oil Rig," Autumn said passively, tossing his cap onto his bunk before hopping up himself. Catching Sutler's quizzical, possibly judgemental look he added. "I'm just yanking your chain Sutler, it was a mighty fine display."

Sutler nodded appreciate before smirking.

"Nice… did you get to second?" Sutler said, his eyes lighting up feverishly.

"First," Autumn said despondently. "But there's always next time."

"Augustus Autumn Jnr, I am disappointed in you."

"Still, better than getting struck-out, right Sutler?"

Sutler scowled at him.

"It's a dead subject Autumn, leave it out," he hissed.

"All right sport, don't buckle your LCE to tight," he dropped down from his bunk and clapped Sutler on the back. "Besides, I didn't just come here to chew you out. Actually came with a proposal of-sorts."

"Oh?"

"I went home for a little while and spoke with my Father and he said he'd love to have you and your mother over for dinner one evening, maybe next week?"

Sutler was honestly taken aback for a moment.

"Wow," he murmured finally. "That's quite generous of the Colonel, I'd be honoured Autumn. I'll speak to Mom and see if she can get some time away from the plant next weekend."

"Your Mom works weekends?" Autumn asked quizzically, as though the notion was alien to him. "What exactly does she do?"

"Health Physics department, dosimetry sub-function."

"So she checks out our dosimeters?" Autumn said, fumbling absently with the metallic cylinder he had clipped to his uniform.

" _And_ all the PAS pumps the reactor workers wear… Personal Air Samplers," he added at Autumn's non-pulsed expression. "And the criticality belts and that's not even all those same devices that come from the mainland and more. Can you imagine Autumn? Your entire job, month after month, being to go through a few thousand different radiation monitors that always read the same thing? Some bullshit amount of micro-Sieverts that never amounts to dick. You can see why I didn't want to stick with my own and work on the lower-decks?"

"I guess so Sutler," Autumn said meekly. "Is that where all your friends went to work?"

"Everyone apart from you, yeah."

Autumn smiled.

"Huh," he seemed momentarily taken-aback. "We don't have it easy on the upper-decks you know," he continued in a manner of convivial annoyance. "Where do you think all the bio-labs are? That comes with a whole host of other checks and tests that are a lot of _physical_ than just handing in your dosimeter every month."

"We all got to keep busy somehow."

"Yeah well, existentialism aside sport," Autumn continued. "Going and ask Mrs. Sutler if she'll be available for around 7pm this Saturday. She'll need to get leave and my father will have to requisition a table and chairs from the stores."

"Autumn, I'm really honoured," Sutler said simply, his voice genuinely sincere.

"It's alright sport, you got to see how the other half lives right?"

* * *

"Come hear boy," Lily-Ann commanded, seizing him by an epaulette and dragging him closer to dab at his face with a wash-cloth. "Don't they teach you hygiene in the Army anymore? You're meeting a Lieutenant-Colonel on the Project!"

He grimaced and pulled a face as the damp cloth was washed over his face.

"I suppose he'll have medals too," she fretted. "I haven't even got a Mother's Medal…" She glanced over at their solitary shelf. It was there shrine to Caleb Sutler, an official photograph of him besides a folded flag in a display case, a framed letter from President Richardson and a smaller display case with his medals. "I wish Cal was here," she said to herself. "He'd know what to do."

Though Sutler was familiar of-course with the etiquette accustomed with meeting the upper-ranks, at a private function in their own quarters no-less, he remained somewhat nonplussed by his mother's frantic behaviour.

"Mom, calm down," he said, albeit with only a hint of authority, it's not like he could give her orders after-all. "If Colonel Autumn's anything like Autumn… Augustus rather, then he'll be cool. He's a pretty chill guy."

She shooed him away with a shish of the palm, though not really aimed at him, before turning in the mirror, playing with the zipper on her jumpsuit to determine the appropriate "casual" position and delicately moving her curled hair.

"You don't understand," she snapped. "What it was like before the Project was announced, we were losing hope son and then…" she smiled as though suddenly blessed. "We had hope for the future again and this man, Colonel Autumn, he is one of those who's responsible for that. For _our_ future. He deserves our up-most respect… I hear that he speaks in a wonderful southern accent, we're from New Hampshire before the war maybe we should…"

"No," Sutler cut-in, this time with more assertiveness. "Jeez and we're going to be late unless we leave soon, you wouldn't want to be late for the _Colonel_ would you?"

She kicked back with her foot without taking her eyes from her own reflection but Sutler moved away in time, sticking his tongue out as she watched him in the mirror. They left for Autumn's apartment not a few minutes later, his mother keeping a brisk pace ahead of him as she weaved between the support struts and dawdling other citizens in the corridor. They caught funny looks from the others as they sped through the corridors, where was the widow Sutler going in a spotless jumpsuit, freshly curled hair and with her belt noticeably pulled tighter than normal? Obviously not the Deck 12 Social where everyone stank of sweat from their shift in jumpsuits stained from a day of work. Stepping into the lift they ran up almost the entire length of the Oil Rig, from Deck 11 to 2, stepping out as the doors slid back into a cool, quiet corridor.

* * *

After buzzing the intercom, the door mechanism slid back to reveal a tall, heavily built man standing in the door way blocking the room behind completely; he looked a lot like Autumn, with the same silvery-blonde and powerful jaw. Dressed in a smart black dress uniform, Sutler saw immediately the branch insignia, a hexagon imposed on two crossed retorts – the US Chemical Corps. Sutler snapped into a salute immediately which Autumn Snr returned with a jovial chortle.

"And this must be the famous Alan Sutler," she said, smiling genially down a Sutler and then at Lily-Ann, before offering Sutler a meaty palm in greeting. "But please son, we're off-duty now. Just call me Gus."

"Sure thing Gus sir,"

"If you like I'll allow _Sir_ for this evening… and you must be Mrs Sutler." He offered her his hand which she shook vigour in-return.

"Thank you for inviting us round… Gus," she said, straining the impulses of a lifetime at informally addressing a superior. "You really shouldn't have."

"After hearing how your boy," he clapped a hand on Sutler's shoulder and he almost felt himself sink into the grating. "Wouldn't leave mine behind… that took guts and I wanted to show my appreciation. But please, come-in, no sense leaving you outside."

He stepped back and to the side, allowing Sutler a view of the Autumn's apartment.

"Whoa," he gasped involuntarily as he stepped in. It was a full 12-by-14 feet in size and a door at the back led to a _second_ room which he knew to be their bedroom. The whole place must have been at-least twice as large as their own 12-by-7 space down on Deck 11 but with a soft red carpet instead of cold grating, a small wooden writing desk and a sofa and armchair in the pre-war style. In the middle of the room was a small wooden table with four chairs which clearly was not supposed to be there, a small wooden coffee table had been moved to a side against the wall to fit it in.

"You really didn't have to do to the requisition a table just for our benefit," Lily-Ann said horrified. "We've really imposed too much."

"My dear," Gus replied amiably. "A women can _never_ impose on a southern gentleman." He crossed the room and pulled out a seat at the dining table which she sat at, in a world of cafeterias it was an exotic gesture; Sutler himself simply stood looking around at all the furnishings. After seating Lily-Ann, Gus crossed over to their radio-set on a wall-shelf, again it was a pre-war model rather than the integrated speaker systems in their own room, and turned a knob on all the way around until it clicked and the radio switched off and the sound of fife and drums disappeared completely.

"You can turn them off?" Sutler asked amazed.

"It's one of our luxuries," Gus said, he was all smiles all the time but not in a way that appeared forced or patronising, he turned around however. "Augustus, our guests are here," when he spoke, his tone lost the smooth, flowing grace, instead sounding sharp and harsh. It was an order. Autumn came out from the bedroom, for an instant he looked sullen but his face brightened when he saw the Sutler's.

"Alan," he said brightly. "And this must be Mrs Sutler," he bowed slightly and Lily-Ann blushed.

"Please," she said, somewhat bemused by the spectacle. "There's no need for that." She shook his hand firmly and he appeared monetarily surprised; undoubted her calloused, rough hand was not familiar with the dainty hands of the women he was used to meeting.

* * *

They sat around and joked for a few minutes before a Mr Handy bot allowed itself into the room, bearing some actual china plates in its hands. Ultimately, despite its presentation, it boiled down to the same meals that they had always enjoyed: soy-protein supplements and other assorted vegetables complimented with a fruit puree for desert. The robot brought through beer for everyone though and Sutler's eyes lit up.

"The work you're doing is so important," Lily-Ann said matter-of-factly to Gus. "The Project is our salvation." She quoted the President without though before taking another mouthful as Gus feigned mock modesty.

"Why thank you Lily-Ann," Gus said. "The future our children will lead…" he looked over at the two boys, Autumn eating carefully whilst Sutler speared as much as he could onto his fork before eating. It may be the same food, but the quantity was certainly greater. "You remember where you were of-course when the Project was announced?"

"Like it was yesterday," she responded wistfully. "I remember Hail to the Chief playing whilst I was looking over some dosimeters that had just came in before Harold, my supervisor then, called everyone into the main office where our TV was to hear Richardson's address…" she peeled off noticing something on a shelf above the sofa. "Is that you with the President?"

Sutler looked up from his rapidly emptying plate. "A picture of the Colonel and a much younger looking Richardson stood shaking hands.

"Ah yes," Gus continued. "I'd met with the President before you understand but that was the day that the US Chemical Corps was reformed to undertake our monumental task…" he trailed off. "Your husband's sacrifice to our cause was brave and absolutely vital," he said humbly. "We can all only hope to die with such honour."

"Thank you Colonel," she said simply. "We all bear our losses for the cause." The adults fell silent, Sutler shooting glance at Autumn whilst he sipped his second beer.

"Perhaps we should see what's on Enclave Radio father," Autumn added. Gus jumped up with a smile, striding across to the radio and turning it on. The radio was halfway through a rendition of "For Auld Lang Syne" on the piano. Autumn placed his knife and fork on the table and looked to his father who stood pensively at the radio.

"I'd like to take Sutler around for a look at the Deck," he said plainly, staring at his father. "You'd like that right Sutler?"

"Sure," Sutler said, jerking his head up at the request. Truthfully he was feeling somewhat groggy from the beer which he was barely used to. "I'd love to see the Deck."

"Come on sport," Autumn said, guiding Sutler out of the door, he looked back as the door closed. "You want to see the President?"

Sutler stood to attention automatically, swaying only slightly. "Really?"

"Well sort of."

* * *

They walked past the bank of elevators to the stairs, Sutler looking back over his shoulder but shrugging dismissively as they took the longer route via the main staircase up to Deck 1. Even at the late hour, troopers stood on guard around the deck, giving small wavings of greeting to Autumn as they walked through the corridor.

"Here," Autumn said, giving Sutler another beer as Sutler drained the remains of his bottle; Sutler smiled widely, making a small moan of gratitude as he took the bottle and followed after Autumn. The guard further down the corridor was less informal, he stood as still as a statue, a black golem at the end of the corridor who demanded to see their papers. He took Autumn's and nodded curtly, allowing him passed before looking at Sutlers.

"You're along way from your Deck, Recruit Sutler," he said, though he sounded passive, the suspicion in his voice was clear.

"He's with me Sergeant Sir," Autumn said to the guard. The guard looked at Sutler papers again and then at the young boy, swaying slightly before cracking a small grin and giving his papers back. "All right Mr Autumn," he said finally.

Past the guards were four Sentry bots, ensconced in chargers in the wall where they bobbed and hummed slightly before the great bulkhead door before them. It was as tall and wide as the corridor, in its centre the seal of the Presidential Office. Sutler found himself slightly sobered in its presence, an aura almost emanating from the door and the sheer proximity he found himself to the President.

"Wow," Sutler gasped softly, looking up at it. " _He's_ behind this door?"

"He certainly is" Autumn said, he put his arm around him. Truthfully, even in the presence of the President's very door, Sutler was tired and visibly so; the plentiful food and alcohol resting heavy on him. "You look tired Alan," Autumn said, giving him a slight shake. "I forget sometimes that you're my junior."

"What do we do with a drunken soldier?" Alan said groggily.

"Put him on the mainland till he's sober," Autumn laughed. "On in your case to bed. Christ sport, I'll have to teach you how to drink properly."

Autumn coached him back to the main elevators, giving a friendly wave to the Sergeant as he passed. Sutler grunted as the lift descended down through the Decks, it's stopping and starting making him feel ill. He closed his eyes, letting Autumn guide him by the shoulders through the corridors till he was back at his own room. Letting himself in, and forgetting about Autumn entirely, he clumsily unbuttoned his uniform and crawled into his top bunk. He felt something weighing the bed down at the end by the ladders and opened his eyes to see Autumn there, looking at him. Sutler grinned before closing his eyes.

"I'm fine Autumn, just a few beers is all."

"I know sport,"

"Where's Mom?"

"Probably talking with father about old people stuff, like the Project and shit like that," he said plainly.

As Sutler drifted in and out of sleep, he was aware of Autumn at the end of the bed until the door to the apartment opened and his Mom came home. He didn't know what time it was as she thanked Autumn, for looking after her son, slurring only slightly before bidding Autumn a good night and going to sleep herself.

* * *

He'd apologised, first to his mother and then to Autumn the next day for his behaviour and by the Monday he was completely fine. The week proceeded as expected, training sims, target practice and PT. By the next weekend, his Mom sent him an intra-mail saying that Tom Murray, Director of the Atomic Energy Authority himself, had promoted her to an Acting Supervisor in Dosimetry.


	6. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 6

**November, 2238**

 **Recruit Quarters, Enclave Oil Rig**

The re-election of Dick Richardson to his fifth term as the President of the United States of America passed with the steadily declining amount of fanfare that had accompanied the now foregone conclusion since his only real competition for the Office during his first re-election campaign 12 years ago. To run against Dick was not only seen as absurd but, effectively, even a little treasonous and suspect in itself these days. but formality dictated an actual opposition candidate go up against Richardson-Bird so the election had proceeded as usual, Richardson armed with the usual glut of Project statistics that managed to be "declassified" in the run-up to every election and his opponent with nothing but praise for the incumbent and even suggesting that he was running merely so that Dick could enjoy a well-earned retirement. The actual dirty business of politics waged between the various voting blocs, unions and committees that competed with each-other for rights to resources, working hours and other concerns – particularly with access to VR sims which almost everything required for training purposes but were infinite supply. Under Richardson, the scientists had always won this debate and did so this year as-well; being granted significant VR access rights at the expense of the Army which explained Hillenkoetter's foul mood on the morning after the election as he angrily left his office with a basket of shredded paperwork and almost threw it at the Mr Handy which had come to collect the waste.

"Looks like the boss is madder than a wet hen," Autumn said as he the door slid shut after the Sergeant; he bent down to grab a few of the shreds that had fallen from the basket. "But looks like we're not doing the damn Yangtze again anytime soon."

"By the Stars and Stripes," Drexler murmured in reverence, placing a meaty palm over his heart in mock salute. "Say it ain't so? Cos if I got to listen to another Commie screaming at me in their damn language anymore… I swear I can't be held accountable if I do a Sutler."

Sutler grinned, his going rouge back in the Yukon sim had made him a name in barracks banter.

"Confucius says die mother-fucker," he said, miming firing a rifle whilst everyone else sniggered. "'Bi Shen' that prick."

"They should let us loose in San Fran and we can finish this damn War," Roscoe interjected, shaking his head. "Or just drop a nuke on the place and have done with it."

Sutler and the rest nodded in approval, the Chinese had been infiltrating the West Coast of the United States since the 1800's, setting up their – dare he say – "enclaves" in major cities of which the best known was Chinatown, San Francisco, a slice of Beijing in the heart of America's once most populous Commonwealth. They'd heard the tales and read the after-action reports of the scuttling, beetle-like residents that swarmed the place, eating seaweed and worshipping their "emperor". All very primitive and barbarous of-course.

"What exactly do you think "San Fran shore leave" means Roscoe?" Drexler said with a grin. "They certainly ain't sampling the local delicacies."

"What was is Chase said," Sutler laughed before trying to imitate the General's high yet gravely tone. "We're not going to shoot the bastards, we're going tear out their guts and use them to grease the joints of our armour. We're going to murder those Red cock-suckers by the bushel!"

The jubilation was, it transpired, short-lived, like distant thunder of the gathering storm the grin etched across Hillenkoetter's face braced them all for dire news; they were getting sent to the mainland, a first in a damn long time for mere recruits.

* * *

Tales came out of Navarro all the time, it was a shit-hole by all accounts, old even by the time of the Great War and over a century of dereliction had done nothing to improve it. It had been built as an air force flight-school and sold cheap to Poseidon Oil after Nellis in Nevada got a full VR training suite and rendered the place moot to all but the Poseidon's vulture like lobbyists in Washington. Now the motley collection of concrete and asphalt blocks and dusting of huts of the brick and Quonset variety was the forward operating base for all their mainland operations; paint peeled, metal rusted and tarmac cracked, and it was a miserable sight for any civilised American used to the cool uniformity of the Oil Rig. As the Vertibirds touched down on the tarmac, the doors slid apart to reveal a soldier stood before them. He beckoned with his arm, lest he be inaudible over the terrific din of the Vertibird's rotors which caused the recruits to involuntarily block their ears as they stepped from the craft and followed the soldier. They entered a small hut not too far away, a small cramped oblong lit by a few dim lamps and the wooden floor crushed beneath the weight of power armour so often that bare concrete showed through in place; at the end of the room a hemisphere of chairs were clustered around a podium at which the soldier stood ushering them all to be seated whilst Hillenkoetter lurked somewhere behind them.

"Alright recruits, welcome to Camp Navarro. I am Sergeant Lincoln and I'll be taking you through your _mercifully_ induction to site and the mainland. Right."

Of-course, an _induction_. The all-pervasive bureaucracy of the Enclave. There was a course, committee or seminar on pretty much every conceivable activity: alcohol, sex-ed, library privileges, time-card completion, inductions were collected through-out life in the Enclave like badges in the Scouts.

Lincoln walked across to a projector on a table before him and flicked it on, taking a clicker back with him and with a press introducing the first slide which displayed a map of the facility, a web of roads lined by the outlines of buildings. Some were shaded, notably a large ground in the base's eastern section outside of which only sporadic locations were similarly marked.

"This is Navarro, the shaded parts we occupy, the un-shaded we do not have a regular presence. As temporary onsite personnel you are _not_ go anywhere without an escort. Fairly simple. You'll be staying in this dormitory here on Engineer's Quadrant," he indicated a place on the projection fairly close to the end of the large eastern section.

"As for alarms, they are the same as normal on-board the Oil Rig, though this is not a nuclear facility we utilise the same alarm as the Oil Rig's undercover to indicate an attack on this facility. Same rules apply to you guys, you hear that tone you stay indoors and wait for instructions. Apart from that the alarms are the same with weekly fire-alarm tests on a Wednesday."

"Now, more general safety," he continued. "For all of you I'm sure, this will be your first time on the surface, in the sunlight," he grinned and Sutler found himself grinning back nervously. "But out here we take that kind of thing seriously, nobody wants to be peeling inside a helmet because their too much of a man to put on some sunscreen." He pointed to a table close-by with an open box of bottles. "You will take one and apply it to any exposed skin at-least three times a-day."

"Finally there's security, keep your papers on you at-all times and take a visitors badge on the way out that must be visible at-all times. Lastly, we haven't got this entire facility locked down, sometimes things get in, roaches and rats mostly of the mutant variety, you see one you give it some Wattz, anything larger you get a soldier. Understood?"

Everyone nodded in the affirmative.

"Alright Sergeant, I'll leave them into your care. Make sure you all sign the clipboard on the way out."

"Listen up recruits," Hillenkoetter marched the front of the room. "You have time to get some food at the canteen and then get back to your dorm. Get a long nights sleep, cos you're gonna need it. Now get your shit and fall-out."

* * *

The sunscreen was thick and oily, like the barrier cream worn by the machinists, with Sutler and many others grimacing as they applied the concoction to their face and hands. Hillenkoetter escorted them to the army, a line of young men squinting at the harsh sunlight yet looking all around them at the base; their gaze was only united when a trio of motorcycles with sidecars and an open truck of power armoured soldier drove past, their friendly waves only feebly returned by a few as they watched the vehicles in awe. The sun was warm on Sutler's skin, it was an odd feeling, not like being just being hot but literally bathing in the heat. His father had been here a couple of years ago and he wondered if anyone around here had ever known him. The canteen building, at-least looked more serviceable than the other places around the base, a squad brick structure close to the eastern fence-line that had at-least got a regular clean even if the paint was still almost sandblasted away from the window frames and doors.

The canteen room itself large was a solid maroon coloured floor that felt as hard as concrete but seemed to shine as-though polished even though heavily grazed by the heavy boot marks of power armour creating a steady trail from the door, to the serving window and then to a fenced area at the back of the canteen where the seats were replaced by solid block benches – a sign read "Power Armour Only". The place was mostly empty, the inescapable tick of the PA system audible over the scant conversation between a group of Atomic Energy Commission personnel with black windbreaker zipped-up over their regular jumpsuits.

"One power armour, at-least half-a-dozen people without, smell clean. Escorting guests from the Oil Rig,"

The chef at the window stared at them, his nostrils flaring slightly. The greeting might have been odd save for the fact that the man was visibly blind, his irises were milky white and scars lined his forehead and around his eyes. Pre-army Sutler might have recoiled at the site but Sutler who'd been through the VR sims had seen far worse things done to a man than a mere blinding.

Hillenkoetter smiled to himself and asked for his ration.

"Don't know you as a regular visitor escort," he said whilst serving the Sergeant, he served the food without moving his head and looking at what he was doing. "Got it, you're the recruits from the Oil Rig. Well welcome to Camp Navarro guys. Regular soy and supplements today I'm afraid but I've just baked some Victory Cake for desert."

Most people were too startled by the man's odd behaviour to offer much but thanks as he deftly filled their trays with uniform quantities of soy beans and other vegetables before depositing a square slab of the egg, sugar and milkless "Victory Cake" into a different compartment. Filing away to some benches by a TV mounted to a column that sat around to eat, talking and joking about the mainland, everyone seemed to have noticed something different about the base so far.

* * *

Sutler slung his duffle onto his bunk, he'd found where Autumn had already claimed the top bunk and began packing away his gear into a trunk by the bed beneath his. The room in the little Quonset wasn't too shabby, it's floor had scarcely seen the tread of Power Amour if its condition was anything to go by. It was only when looking around that he noticed Autumn wasn't there.

"Anyone seem Autumn?"

There a few shrugs and a vague direction outside.

Opening the door, noting finding Sutler but Drexler sat cross legged on-top of a barrel, his awkward gangly limbs barely managing to fit, as he stared up at the sky – not even looking as Sutler stepped out.

"What are you doing Drex?" Sutler asked, watching him curiously.

"We haven't all been invited to Autumn's private topside parties Sutler," Sutler felt him face flush slightly. "I mean just look at the sky, the clouds… it's so weird that this _should_ be natural."

"We've seen sky in the VR."

"Yeah but this is _real_ ," he sounded enthralled, as though not even really speaking to Sutler. "That's the real Sun right there burning away like a million-million miles away or what-ever. I'm sure that they only have three models for the sky in the VR and just swap out the colour-schemes, those are actual clouds. Anyway," he appeared to wake from his reverie. "What's the time?"

"Eighteen forty-four hours."

"Damn," he cursed, all tranquillity gone as he hopped from the barrel. "Need to find a radio before Our American Family starts."

"OAF?" Sutler sniggered. "Anyway you're shit-out, we're not on CSE anymore, this is the mainland, you're not getting Enclave Radio out here."

"Aw fuck, we were supposed to find out if Betty is getting out of hospital today," he caught Sutler bemused expression. "It's a complex pre-war period drama," he snapped back. Besides I thought deck snipes like you loved soaps?"

"Women like soaps Drex, women care if 'Betty' is getting out of hospital tonight. Anyway," he waved his hand. "You seen Autumn?"

"Oh yeah," he grinned darkly and Sutler's heart sank. "Said he was going out exploring, one of those buildings over there." He gestured feebly at some derelict buildings across a deserted avenue.

"What! Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Well I was enjoying the clouds and then you called me a girl so…"

"Go fuck a mutant Drex! He's my battle-buddy, Sergeant's going to kill me."

Drexler shrugged before hopping back up onto his barrel and Sutler stormed back into the hut, emerging again a few minutes later in full kit.

"What's with the get-up Sutler?" Drexler asked, watching Sutler check his pistol and pull the brim of his cap down over his face.

"I've got to go and get Autumn, I am not getting dicked on because he likes breaking the rules. If anyone see's me they'll just think I'm a soldier."

"Sutler you are very clearly a sixteen your old boy."

Sutler ignored him.

"Come on Drex, what building?"

He pointed more directly this time at a dishevelled three story brick office across the avenue as Sutler marched briskly towards the building.

* * *

Though he marched through the door with purpose, inwardly he went ice-cold as it creaked loudly and he closed it slowly, wincing at the grinding hinges before it closed with a heavy thud. He cursed quietly. He turned, looking around what he imaged must be a typical lobby, a desk by the door and a few non-descript corridors leading off. Shafts of evening light that permeated the grimy windows illuminated the dust hanging in the air and Sutler coughed involuntarily before he checked his anxious gulps of air. He could feel dust settling into the oily sunscreen on his face. Looking around, he took a few steps into the lobby, gazing down the different corridors before spotting a head sticking out of a doorway, his face etched with a smug, triumphant smile.

"I knew you'd come sport," Autumn said. At-least he had the fact not to shout it.

"What are you doing?" Sutler hissed as he crossed the space between them as quietly as he could manage. He didn't physically grab Autumn and thrust him into a wall like he wanted, but the urge was strong. "Are you trying to get us in-trouble?"

"Just some harmless exploring." He seemed so dismissive, was this what a privileged up-bringing did to people? "You really think Sarge is going to be keeping an eye on us all the time? He's confident that 's broken us. Guess he missed a couple."

"He missed _one_ , another is just very patient."

"I'm making a _man_ of you Sutler, you think you're going to make commissioned by just being some robot? Takes guts and balls to move up Sutler, I'm doing you a favour. You want to be here too Sutler, I know it."

Sutler sighed.

"What do you want to do before we can go?"

"I was hoping to find something cool," he sounded disappointed. "It's all just paper drier and more fragile than that Victory Cake we had earlier. So now I want to kill a mutant."

"What like a rat or a cockroach? They're not even sentient, where's the fun in that?"

"First blood of your unit Sutler," he said wryly. "You in?"

Sutler paused, he stroked his chin and then the pistol in his chest rig before cracking a slight smile and a fake sigh of resignation.

"Well," he sighed. "As I am here after-all… _and_ if it gets us back to the barracks faster." He drew his pistol. "What setting do you reckon will kill a rat, no sense in firing at full-charge and making more noise than we need to." His smile faded as he looked around. "Lot of dry stuff around here Autumn, don't want to start a fire."

Autumn waved his concerns away.

"Good show sport, I'm going for setting two, a mild singe on a man should kill one of these things. It'll be fun, _real life training_. I'll take point, you get my six."

They emerged, almost back-to-back from the room, walking like a single-entity down the corridor. Upon reaching a door they'd take positions either-side, preparing to breach as though there was a squad of commies waiting on the other side rather than the desks and chairs that ultimately occupied them all. It was only when heading back to the lobby that something small on the ground, silhouetted bounded past the end of the corridor. A bulbous grey created with a mane of hair along its back and glowing eyes, it ran like a gallop with all four legs of the ground. Autumn cried in shock, prompting Sutler spin around, catching only a sight of its tail.

"Target acquired," Autumn said, beaming he patted Sutler on the break and broke rank; Sutler's eyes were wide with excitement and anticipation as he followed after him. Peaking around the wall at the end of the corridor, the rat was gone, but the sight of a door still moving slowly on its hinges marked its trail. Autumn silently gestured at the door and then for Sutler to follow him, the glorified hunting of a rat given all the credence and precision as the clearing of a building from enemy soldiers. Forming up on the door, Sutler placed his hand on the knob and looked at Autumn for confirmation. When he nodded Sutler flung the door open as Autumn ran in and he towed behind.

Autumn saw the rat flying at him from the corner of his eye, it pincer of a mouth open and bursting with its shrill screech. Holding his pistol in two-hands he swung around to meet the creature before Sutler let go of his pistol and pointed it at the rat one-handed and shot the thing from the air. The blast, though mild, sent it back into a desk against which it banged loudly but didn't move. Autumn was breathing heavily as he looked at the creature.

"Shit," he cursed. "Unusual size for a rodent wouldn't you say?"

His eyes were still wide with fear, not excitement. That had been very close.

"It's a pistol Autumn," Sutler said, himself feeling suddenly short of breath. "Not a rifle, you can just _let go_ with one of your hands. You'd never have tagged it moving that slow."

"Yeah," he said meekly. "Lucky I've got the cowboy kid with me eh?"

"What, I…"

"Please Sutler," Autumn chuckled as he tried to regain his classic composure. "I know you practice quick-drawing when you're on your own, the look on your face when I walked in last week." Catching Sutler glare he had the modesty to at-least appear grateful. "Thanks Sutler."

"How'd you have explained the bite-marks to the Sergeant? Or _medical_ …" Sutler let the question hang and Autumn looked momentarily horrified. Still he looked past Autumn at the dead rat on the floor and smiled. "Right, it's settled. I win, you suck. Shall we go?"

"I'd think we'd better sport. First kill, Alan Sutler."


	7. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 7

**November 2238, Camp Navarro**

Sutler and Autumn had crept back to the barracks shortly after dispatching the mutated rat, marching briskly and with purpose they crossed from the forbidden buildings across the road back to their hut. Sutler had barely been able to breathe he'd been that scared of getting caught. But they made it back, slipping quickly through the door with a cursory check to ensure that nobody was watching them sneak back into the building full of recruits. They'd been met more than a few scornful looks; more than likely only the fear of their own punishment had kept them from immediately reporting Sutler and Autumn to the Sergeant. Autumn's swaggering persona and frequent disregard for rules hadn't made him many friends in the barracks and Sutler's almost-familial devotion to him the frequent but of crass humour. Sutler was the naïve son of a deck snipe and by-all rights Autumn was slumming it when he could have walked into any position amongst his top-deck peers; they were never going to fit in amongst the military brats.

Even they though could not fail to be enraptured by tale of front-line action that they came back with and watched awed as Sutler and Autumn re-enacted the scene. Admittedly they embellished it in-places, hunting down a rat didn't exactly make for a compelling story. Still it was the first act of combat anyone had taken and the other recruits saved whatever reservations they had for another time. When the Sergeant had come in later for lights out they'd fallen silent and stood to attention as-usual, a layman though would have recognised the almost panicked nature of the silence as the discussing of something forbidden, Hillenkoetter had merely grinned smugly to himself at the respect he commanded. He was unusually still happy though and a happy sergeant usually meant him sporting a hard-on for intensive physical exercise and punishment.

"You will be ready for muster at five-thirty hours," he said darkly, basking in the sinking cold that was surely emanating from everyone else.

* * *

Five hours later, Sutler rubbed his eyes furiously to stay awake. Fire-guard duty sucked. He was sat on the foot of his bunk, so tired that even the regulation slabs of concrete that passed for cots in Basic felt comfortable. He looked over at Drexler sleeping in the bunk next to him, his lanky frame pushing his feet almost out of the bunk.

"I am a warrior…" he murmured in his sleep. Sutler felt his mouth twitch involuntarily and he rubbed the track mark on his arm. For an instant he was back in the Conditioning Centre, all dark and flashing lights. A cacophony of kettle and snare drums are banging in the background. His eyes are wide and he's stood to attention before a hideous holographic montage of footage from the Chinese War and whilst yelling at the top of his lungs, "Kill the Gooks! Kill the Gooks! Kill them all!"

"Nuke the Gooks," Sutler muttered unconsciously.

He slammed his palms into his head and grunted, looking up to see Autumn staring at him before giving a curt nod at the door outside.

"Thank God," Sutler though as he tip-toed after Autumn, he was sweating slightly and needed some fresh air – actual cool, crisp mainland air. He opened the door and drank the cool air in as his breath returned to normal. He looked at Autumn who had his head craned skyward. Sutler looked up too curiously and almost instantly the fury inside him melted away.

"Madness ain't it?" Autumn said passively. "That something no-one probably even thought about before the war is so awesome to us."

The sky was a black canvas coated in stars of all shapes and luminosities amongst the glowing band of the Milky Way. Even though simulations to this point had been all daytime, even if they had been at night they couldn't have hoped to reproduce the night's sky that night.

"Wow," Sutler said dumbstruck.

"You looked like you could use a breather," Autumn looked at him, concern etched on his face; his eyes flicked from Sutler's fore-arm where'd he been rubbing it earlier to his face. "Thanks for coming to get me earlier Alan, I didn't say it properly at the time but you may have saved me from a rather ignoble set of proceedings."

"Yeah man, if that rat thing had gotten you: the Sergeant, Medical, Rad Away regimen… what do you think your father would say if his only son had to go before the Eugenics Board as a potential deviant?"

"It was just a rat-bite, wouldn't have been that mutagenic."

"You don't know and I thought this was a thank you. It's that attitude which is why the others don't like you. You're too abrasive."

"Yes," Autumn said, drawing the word out, "it is and I am grateful. Thank you Alan." There was a pause. "So why do you like me then?"

Sutler was honestly taken aback for a moment.

"I don't know," he managed after a minute. "Your nice to me, I guess, and we are Barrack-Buddies. I used to fucking hate you so consider it an improvement!"

"I do and I'm glad. Fair enough Alan," he said with a warm smile. "It's just one of those things, but I'll tell you why I like you. When you came back and got me in the Yukon. That meant a lot. To disobey orders like that. Not only did you risk incredible pain to help me but it speaks for your character. Your better than the others." He rolled his eyes at Sutler's puzzled look and almost laughed. The boy really was almost charmingly innocent. "You think it's just what anyone would have done right? Well it's not because none of the others did. Did they? You showed a true independence of character… your going to go far sport let me tell you. Dogs like the Sergeant and those in there don't get bars on their collar let me tell you." He spotted Sutler's look again. "I'm not saying that the Sergeant is a bad guy Sutler, far from it, he's got a stellar record. But he's a dog, an order _follower_. Not an order giver. You think those boys in there will make great soldiers?" He gestured back to the barracks.

"Yeah, of-course they will I'm sure."

"And they could all be Sergeants one day themselves right?"

"With the right attitude then yeah?"

"Well I hate to break it too you sport but they can't. There's just over 700 soldiers in the Joint Forces. Not everyone can rise up by just following orders. To make it means you have to be something different, why take good followers out of the pack to make them officers?"

"What are you saying Autumn?"

"I'm saying you did good sport, and that I have faith in you. You want to see the Sutlers' restored? Stick with me Alan, I'll guide you through the murky waters outside the tranquil lagoon of just following the rules. I've been testing you, sneaking topside, sneaking out here… and you always come through and I know you enjoyed hunting that beast tonight no matter your bitching. Right?"

"Well… yeah," Sutler felt a little foolish.

"Good. You're a good man Alan with good potential."

Sutler nodded in silence. He really couldn't formulate his words of gratitude. He hadn't know him for long and the battles they'd fought in weren't real. But Autumn was like the brother he never had. He offered his hand and Autumn took in his own before clapping him on the back.

"Good," he said with a smile. "Now, this is all getting a bit gay. Let's get back inside and make sure Schubert isn't wacking-off again or anything."

* * *

The reason for the Sergeant's masochistic glee became rather apparent the next day. They were going off base, jogging up-hill… in full hazmat and pack. They slogged up and down the hills around Navarro, condensed sweat pouring down Sutler's Plexiglas visor. He ached all over and wanted to utilise every breath for sucking in the stale air from his O2 tanks. But then came the cadences, the famous Joint Force cadences.

"I've got the teeth of a killing machine!" Hillenkoetter yelled, jogging merrily along in his power-armour alongside his floundering recruits.

"With the need to bleed you when the light goes green!"

"Hope is a moment now long past! The shadow of death is the one I cast!"

"One-two-three-four! I love the Joint Force!"

"I can't hear you!"

They recited each sentence as loud as they could manage as they slogged along. They were unarmed but accompanied by a truck with a few soldiers in-case anything nasty came along or anyone collapsed. Sutler could barely even concentrate enough to look at the surroundings around him at the sight of real plants and critters in the distance. Every thought used to muster the will for each step forward. The entire two weeks of their stay at Navarro was in the same vein. The Sergeant was ruthless, completely and utterly, with no time even for weapon drill, lessons or anything else. Solid PT, non-stop. To collapse into bed was a greater bliss then he'd even known and to be roused for fire-drill even more-so. Sutler had forgotten what seamless, non-painful movement was by the time they were scheduled to return to the Oil Rig.

After being on the mainland, to see the deck of the Oil Rig again was like a wave of pure bliss. Gingerly stepping out of the craft onto the flight deck he breathed a sigh of relief at the familiarity. A sense of purity and orthodoxy washed over him from the faintly blue light from the sconces on the wall to the overly elaborate sliding of the door mechanisms and the clack of boot-heels on the metallic mesh flooring. He had wanted to let his mother know he was home, but he was too tired for even some cursory acknowledgement upon seeing his bunk exactly as he left it.

* * *

Sutler awoke from rapture the next morning as the tinny rendition of Reveille coming from the PA system. Sutler cracked his eyes open, seeing the familiar face of the WW2 soldier bayoneting a Japanese on the mural that ran the length of the wall opposite.

"Drop your cocks and grab your socks! Uniforms on and bunks made. On the double recruits!"

Sutler swung up and out of bed, wincing at the pain in his legs and arms as pulled on his pants and fiddled clumsily with his braces. It was only then he noticed the clock, it read oh-eight hundred hours rather than oh-six hundred hours. They'd been given longer sleep. Eventually mustered at the foot of the bed and at-attention. The Sergeant paced up and down the line taking inventory, giving an occasional grunt.

"Alright recruits," he said, spinning on his heels at the head of the room. "It seems," he paused with a heavy sigh. "That you have all passed the test, you have survived a regime of PT designed to break those incapable of pursuing a career in the Joint Force. Congratulations," he spat the word almost bitterly. "Right now follow me, double-time."

They followed the Sergeant out of the barracks and to a smaller room, the door opening onto a small classroom. Sutler eyes lit up wide, in-front of all the desks was a suit of Powered Combat Armour, Mk II.

"Welcome to Power Armour induction and orientation. Take a seat." The Sergeant said, taking a position at the front of the room next to the empty suit of armour. An excited fervour commandeered his every movement and Sutler found it hard to keep the grin from his face. This was it, the first of the last three stages of graduation. They were getting a suit of armour of their own.

"Right," the Sergeant yelled. He slammed his fist against the carapace. "This is the Mk II Powered Combat Armour. It is the pinnacle in personal defence and enhancement technology. It is composed of metal-matrix composites, chiefly silicon, and titanium cermets with a steel backing-plate. The outer-surface is coated with an ablative-resistant coating of silver which provides considerable protection against direct-energy weapons fire. It can take upwards of 10kJ to the chest region before compromise becomes a risk. At 100 yards you could take a three round burst of 308 Winchester and survive or, more likely, over a dozen rounds of Remington 223 at a range greater than 300 yards. The previously mentioned ablative-resistant coating has demonstrated a 90% effective dissipation rate against US Class 6 military laser-based fire-arms. 60% effective against plasma and electrical attacks, that is amazing. You could take a bolt of superheated plasma to the chest and remain fully combat effective."

He paused, Sutler looked around to see that Spencer had raised his hand.

"Sir," he got to his feet and stood to attention. "Why was the Mk II designed to be so effective against energy weapons considering the nature of the mainland threat sir? If the mutants in New Reno are willing to pay arm-over-fist for puny Wattz 1000's, why the need for high tolerance against laser fire sir?"

"An excellent question youth," Hillenkoetter said, Sutler could tell that beneath his helmet the Sergeant was smiling at the excuse to deride someone. "After the extent of the mutant threat was determined in the 70's." His eyes flicked towards Sutler for a second and he knew instantly what he was talking about, the FEV mutants that had killed his father and were rampaging all over SoCal. "The eggheads got all the resources that they wanted to develop a new suit of Power Armour and all it took was a few shoots of those mutie-bastards wielding Wattz rifles jumble all-kinds of pre-war research. Before the war we were sure that the gooks were only years away from mass-deployment of energy weapons and wanted to ensure that our boys would be able to take it. Hence the highly effective ablative-resistant coating. Frankly the Mk II is overdesigned, the eggheads rinsed the Government for everything they could. In the post-Project world you'll be doing pest-control and the coating will be for squat. Right," he looked back at the armour.

"The armour does have weak-points though, joints obviously but also the power-pack at the back and the helmet. What-ever you get up to in the barracks has no place on the battlefield maggots; the last place you want to is take a full load in-combat is to the face or your back. I'll start with the back." The demo suit didn't move so the Sergeant turned around and jabbed a thumb at the power-pack in the small of his back.

"The Mk II uses a lot of power, presently that's an unsolvable issue, and it generates a lot of heat. You do not want to take fire to the power unit or the radiators in a fire-fight. The suit is optimised for offensive action, it goes without saying normally but doubly so when fighting in one of these suits. Do no turn your back to the enemy when-ever possible. Now the helmet," he turned back around and smartly removed his own with several well practiced movements.

"The helmet is the weakest part of the armour, obviously. You've got your external air filters and closed-system air supply connected to this thing and they are obvious weak-points that, if damaged, can greatly affect your combat efficiency. If you are required to fight in sealed conditions damage to your internal air-supply can obviously be fatal. The visors are constructed from bullet-proof glass, can take a 10mm but that's about it. Now these three rods here." He indicated a trio of small, pipe-looking protrusions close on the right-hand side of the armour around jaw height. "These are rotary switches used to control your armours functions. You'll notice that the index finger on the right-hand has a small pad on the tip to allow for more precise control. The main ones are this first switch on the left, twist it to activate low-light vision. This next one activates your hermetic seal, twist and push in to confirm lock. You," he pointed at Shubert. "Why do you think the hermetic seal requires to be locked-in place and pushed into the helmet?"

Shubert panicked for a second before mustering a response.

"So you don't accidental knock it whilst operating other functions sir."

"Correct," the Sergeant responded, seemingly surprised at the boys accuracy. "The last thing you want when operating in hermetic environment is to accidental open your seal whilst trying to activate low-light vision. In hermetic seal mode you will have 30 minutes of fresh oxygen stored in the system. The helmet also comes with a straw for drinking water. Speaking of which, piss. For long-term deployments an external catheter must be worn and drained into a reservoir in the leg. Don't shit your pants Sutler it's external, not a Foley."

"Thank fucking God… Sir," Sutler breathed a huge sigh of relief.

* * *

After a few more notes on the armour the Sergeant had taken them through to another room to change into custom-fitted under-suits to be worn with the armour. Bulky, form-fitting jumpsuits with various mechanical connectors that would lock with the power armour. And then just like that he was stood in a suit of Mk II Powered Combat Armour, marvelling at his own hands as though he'd never seen them before and grinning from ear to ear beneath his helmet. The models were powered down versions so that the recruits could get used to the servo motors and how they greatly impacted movement; in the old days there had been talk of broken limbs and worse by careless recruits unused to the agility and speed assisted movement provided. He looked up and around for Autumn but everyone looked the same and he felt it foolish to call out for him. He shrugged and looked at his own hands again, flexing the fingers and squatting from one knee to the other as the armour brilliantly held the weight without even an ounce of exertion required on his own part. He was almost a man, only two more trials remained before he was officially a soldier.


	8. Part 1 (Oil Rig), Chapter 8

**January, 2239**

 **Control Station Enclave**

The rapture of gaining power armour lasted for several weeks after getting the suits, despite the extra training that it required; it was a sign that they were all over the hill of training, punished brutally through rigorous PT and now finally considered fit enough to have earned the right to the suits. That was never expressed in so-many words by the Sergeant himself but the indication was clear, you only got power armour after proving you were capable without it. They spent a further week just becoming accustomed moving in the damn things, relearning a thousand basic movements and skills that had been banished from conscious thought long-ago. The difference in equipment alone shattered all their previous notions, due to its size and structure standard Load Bearing Equipment couldn't be used on power armour and the presence of the power-pack and radiators prevented the use of a backpack all together. Instead the majority of field equipment was stored in a duffle-bag that slotted into the small of the back and the lack of a proper place for a belt meant that other equipment was in holders on the thighs. To a layman it might seem like nothing, but a soldier was expected to react to situations like an animal immediately and with instinct with no room for thought; fumbling around for equipment created unnecessary risks to the entire unit. After relearning the basics they moved into power armour combat roles, assaulting the Chinese positions in Alaska and during the Yangtze campaign as-well as patrolling the eerie and deserted streets of annexed Canadian cities for seditious activists.

Classroom work was also taken in a completely new direction, as unit tactics and history was given over to weapon training. They'd been schooled in basic ballistic theory months ago to operate the archaic weapons of the realistic simulation soldier. To be a soldier in the modern Joint Force however meant discarding, mostly, paltry firearms for the use of energy weapons. To be competent with energy weapons however didn't just end at their immediate operation in a combat environment, it meant a knowledge of how they were to be handled and maintained in the field which was far more complicated than the standard kit issued with the R-91 assault rifle. They were given a crash-course in electronic maintenance, instructed how to use soldering irons to perform direct repairs and learned the basics of laser theory. Laser weapons were standard issue, meaning that anyone who applied and failed to earned the limited spots in other weapons specialties such-as, plasma and heavy weapons, were still trained. Sutler himself of-course had wanted none of these things, all he had ever wanted was to acquire the world's most powerful handgun.

The Walther PPK12 Gauss Pistol was unorthodox as a primary weapon, but firing a 2mm aluminium round at over Mach-1 gave it an effectively infinite point blank range where the only determining factor was the operators hand and eyes. Sutler's free-time and weekends were spent at the simulated firing range with the Gauss Pistol with hour after hour of continuous firing. It was a truly fascinating weapon; a qualified operator must be able to engage multiple targets between 150-200 yards away and maximise the rate-of-fire by committing to instinct how long the weapon would vibrate after each shot. The hardest part however was being able to accurately manipulate coil strength in-battle, because though the Gauss pistol could accelerate rounds to ludicrous speeds unless you were hitting a vital organ it would just punch tiny holes through them. Thus the 2x45mm rounds were not designed to be aerodynamic, they could move fast enough to always be lethal, but rather to "tumble" like conventional rounds upon impact, transferring their massive kinetic momentum across the length of the round. To get that right meant that the operator must be able to consistently gauge and the set most effective coil strength to ensure maximum tumbling, across rapidly varying distances, and all in the heat of combat.

It took Sutler a lot of free-time and training but in the end he won out, a Marksman Badge "Pistol – Expert" pinned to his chest and the awesome weapon itself stowed in his locker in the armoury. That day alone had been greater than getting his armour, though the armour was earned through grueling pain that was expected of every soldier; to have been granted the right to use the weapon by the Sergeant was the vindication of himself above his peers.

* * *

The day of the final task was launched upon them unexpectedly, after qualifying for weapons they fell into a routine where-in they learned nothing new but just practiced everyday: PT in the morning, firing-range in the afternoon and reading in the evening. It went on like that for thirteen days before the day of the final exercise was upon them.

The klaxon sounded at four-twenty-two hours, Sutler regaining consciousness fast enough to hear the confused sound of Drexler on fire-guard duty looking up at the speaker.

"The fuck?" He had time to murmur before the barrack was a din of young bodies scrambling from bunks and into boots before racing down to the armoury to suit and gear-up, sprinting through the deserted deck of the Rig. But beneath the professional response was an electric tension flowing silently between them. This was it, the day were boys became men. Navigating the maze of suspended power suits Sutler found his own and stepped into it as its functions energised. At his locker he began donning the rest of his gear, sliding his arms through the straps of his chest rig, clipping on his thigh and leg holsters. He took his two weapons, the immaculately polished Gauss Pistol went into his chest rig beside a pair of plasma grenades and an L-shaped torch whilst a noticeably dull P90c submachine-gun was tucked into a space on his thigh next to a Ripper. Swinging his duffle-bag around his waist he loaded it with gear: allen-keys, portable soldering kit, replacement mag-coils, dose of psycho, extra reservoir and catheter and the rest before closing the clasps. He double-timed back to the barracks, snapping to attention in the familiar sag in the floor-grating by his bunk which had begun to buckle from decades of soldiers weighing it down.

The Sergeant himself came in after five minutes. Stamping down the length of the corridor he beckoned for them to follow, leading them into their familiar classroom. The tables and chairs had been pushed to the side beforehand, they wouldn't have been able to sit suited up regardless. At the head of the room was a middle-aged man in dark in a dark Class-A uniform, a full Lieutenant judging by the single silver bar on his collar, holding the remote to control a projector which cast a rounded square of light on the wall beside him.

"School circle soldiers," he called and they dutifully formed a semi-circle around the projector before snapping to attention and salutes. "At-ease," he returned their salutes.

"Alright soldiers listen up, at two-twenty hours PST the Defence Intelligence Agency received SIGINT indicating a hostile, illegal alien position roughly 104 klicks north-east of Camp Navarro," he pressed a button on his remote and the flickering blank canvas became a map of California with the position of Camp Navarro and the illegal alien, read mutant, position indicated on it. It was roughly somewhere in-between the base and the Old World town of Redding which was known to be active with mutants.

"It has been determined by the DIA that this position represents a threat to the security of Camp Navarro and must be neutralised. Your objective is to formulate a plan of attack against this enemy position and meet the following objectives: the neutralisation of the threat, the securing of enemy non-combatants and the capture of the outpost's CO. After liaising with your commander, Sergeant Hillenkoetter, we have decided to place field-control of this operation with recruit Alan Sutler, now Acting-Sergeant."

Sutler almost felt his heart skip a beat, he looked at the Sergeant stood imposingly behind the officer but the awe and humility he intended to convey was obscured by his helmet.

"Beneath him will be recruits Oscar Schubert and Arnold Drexler as Acting-Corporals. The position itself," he clicked the remote again and a grainy satellite shot of the mutant compound was displayed on the screen, "is comprised of fifteen structures, constructed from local timber and sheet metal, within the confines of a palisade with several structures suspected to be agricultural in nature on the outside." All whilst talking, he was jabbing at the projection with a metal pointer. "Number of enemy personnel is unknown but suspected to be between two and three dozen, lightly armed. Weather projections for the AO is overcast but no rain is expected. Acting-Sergeant."

"Sir," Sutler snapped to attention, left dumbfounded for a second before he realised he was being addressed.

"You have one hour to formulate a plan of attack with your troops before deployment."

The whole thing was a large group exercise like the kind they had sometimes done during classes, a test of their knowledge of unit tactics and positioning. The notion that this "outpost" posed any security threat to Navarro, even in-terms of long distance surveillance, was laughable; it was just a small village of mutants eking out what passed for an existence on the mainland. But a job was a job. They stood around the projection, Sutler was given the officers pointer and stood lost for a moment before making some token gestures. They noted the several watchtowers at key points on the palisade, one the gate and one on two of the corners as-well as lengths of battlements along the longer sections of the palisade. The whole set-up was something from ancient history, a theatre of war that they were not trained for, like the forts in the Revolutionary Wars that had birthed their country. The Chinese had fought from trenches where they had bothered to fortify and the Canadian seditionists fought from the windows and vantages in their own cities; never anything so Colonial in-design.

Sutler stood at the front of the room, taking advice from those in-front of him, he couldn't see their faces and, though they kept their tones chaste, he couldn't help but wonder what some of them thought of taking orders from him. Alan Sutler, the son of a lowly deck-hand and a dead soldier, whose grandparents had fed the great Reactor or abseiled down the struts to remove rust and repaint the Rig now leading people from generational soldiers. He didn't know what he had done to merit this honour, what he had done more than anyone to catch the Sergeant's eye, but he couldn't let him down.

As they planned the officer paced around behind the formation of soldiers, seldom offering comment or interjection. Sutler was watching him from the corner of his eye, scanning for any inflection that might hint at an opinion on their plan, approval or otherwise. The Sergeant too, though largely inscrutable inside his armour, caught Sutler's eye with every movement as he watched closely for a slight shake of the head or nod of approval that the old man might make to himself as he watched the subjects of all his training. When they had discussed simply strafing the entire camp with 25mm grenades from a Vertibird before moving in to mop-up the officer and had piped-up.

"Such a manoeuvre might kill the enemy commander and cause failure of critical mission objectives."

'Of-course', Sutler thought bitterly. 'That would be _cheating'_.

* * *

Sutler was stood comfortably by the right-hand door, looking through the window at the hazy blur of beige and brown, peppered with dead stalks of trees that they were supposedly fighting to reclaim. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel, he'd seen the movies and heard the stories from the others about soldiers laughing, joking and singing as their Vertibird borne them towards their destination. But the atmosphere in the Vertibird was quiet, almost ponderous, not with fear of the task but in reverence of its magnitude and what it meant for them to become men. Looking away from the window he turned to watch his men, three lined up at each of the doors, busying themselves with their equipment and weapons. Drexler in particular Sutler noticed was stood stock still, tracing his thumb around a circular outlet on his plasma rifle whilst looking down but not at the weapon. Sutler watched him curiously, thinking back to something Autumn had said after their weapons the previous week.

"People who go for plasma are like those that went for flamethrowers before the war," he had said cautiously. "A few rounds short of a full mag if you catch me."

Sutler had asked why, not being familiar with military caste superstition.

"There ain't no plasma positions on the Oil Rig sport. The people who are fixin' after those weapons are the kind that want to be on the mainland fighting for as-long as possible and never come home. Some might be kind and call it keen but I'll call it what it is and that's plan weird. Drex is a Plasma Spaz; keep an eye on your Psycho ration.

He continued to watch Drexler perform the reverent motion for a few more moments before the pilot interrupted.

"Alright boys," he yelled back. "ETA at the LZ in five minutes. Gear up!"

Sutler swallowed and felt a cold lump in his chest. It was finally time. He reached for the handle on the door of the Vertibird and slid it back as Drexler on the other-side did the same, their study power armour un-phased by the roaring buffet of air that blasted through. Looking out he saw the other Vertibird flying close beside them, a trooper he took to be Schubert gave him something between a salute and a wave which Sutler returned with a grin.

"Right men," Sutler said turning around to face them. "Light 'em up." There was a flurry of activity as weapons were drawn and re-energised. "Pop-em," he drew a dose of Psycho from his duffle bag and removed a panel on the left fore-guard of his armour to reveal a small circular port; drawing his thumb across a slide it opened mechanically and he slid the needle into his arm. As the drug coursed through him he felt his eyes open wider and became suddenly aware of his breathing as he inhaled and exhaled loudly. Looking out the window again it was like everything had been brought into an unnatural focus, he looked down to find his right fist clenching and unclenching without him having consciously wished it to do so. "Positions!"

He scrambled into a squat before letting his legs hang outside the Vertibird as Private Roscoe did the same next to him and Drexler and Autumn would be doing on the other-side. They were slowing down and losing altitude, coming to a near stop before the cabin of the craft was filled with green light.

"Go!"

The four soldiers dropped some fifty feet to the ground, landing on haunches, their impact kicking a cloud of dry earth into the air. Sutler look up to see the Vertibird peeling away again and across at the other LZ where the other flight was doing the same. The birds, each still with two soldiers between them would hover around the enemy settlement some three klicks distant and provide them with tactical information before their assault.

"Form up,"

Getting to their feet and iron sights pressed to helmets, they scanned around for any sign of activity but found none. Sutler made a chopping motion with his hand as he looked over at the other fire-team, Shubert nodding and beckoning for his men to follow to their designation position. Sutler looked around, gauging the environment of lightly cresting hills and dry, barren soil; dawn had broken only an hour previously, casting a feeble dawn light across the world. The fire-teams were splitting up, as-per their plan, with Sutler leading an attack on the compound's western wall whilst Shubert and his men would take the east. The remaining troops were being deployed on the ruin of an elevated highway not too far from the settlement to act as marksmen. They made swift pace across the wilderness, jogging in a long line. It was as they ran that the one thing which always struck Sutler about the mainland got to him again, the silence. The eerie quiet that pervaded the desolate landscape was enough to make the soldier in him instinctively cautious and expecting of trouble. A life on the Oil Rig accustomed a person to constant noise: the stamp of boots on metal tread, mysterious humming and hissing of machinery behind panels and the constant ticking of the PA system that counted every second of everyday. Out here the only noise being made was by them, their heavy boots in the dry earth and the Vertibirds circling not too far away.

As the settlement can into sight, Sutler could only marvel out how the place really did look like an ancient colonial fort, albeit constructed from tyres and loose timber rather than bricks. Sutler pulled a hand-held radio from his thigh.

"COEN-Twelve, this is Charlie-Actual. Receiving me over?"

"Affirmative Charlie-Actual, Lime Charlie, over." The pilot came back, flat and professional.

"Sitrep on the compound. Over."

"Copy. Around two dozen in central courtyard. Appear armed but can't identify. They're just looking at us, not engaging. Probably rocking their tiny worlds. Over."

It was certainly true, the poor saps behind their flimsy walls had probably never even countenanced the thought of something so large flying. Whilst talking on his radio, Sutler had a pair of binoculars glued to his helmet, the two watchtowers along the perimeter of the compound were manned.

"Copy. Can you identify contact in northern watchtower? Over."

"Affirmative Charlie-Actual. Single contact in northern watch-tower. Over."

"Copy. Need 'em taken all out. Execute to follow. Over."

"Copy. Over."

"Copy. Out. COEN-Nine, are you receiving? Over."

"Copy Charlie-Actual. Over."

"Copy. I've got two structures outside the walls. Need 'em taking out. 25mm cannon. Execute to follow. Over."

"Copy Charlie-Actual. Over."

"Roger. Out."

Both Vertibirds in position, all he needed was a clear from the other two four man teams.

"Delta-Actual, give me two clicks. Execute to follow .Out." He released the transmit button and immediately heard two clicks as Shubert pressed the transmit button twice. "Echo-Actual, two clicks. Execute to follow. Out." Again he received the signal. Everyone was ready. He suddenly felt a great weight on his shoulders as two airborne killing machines and eleven men waited on his signal to wade in combat. The pressing weight of the situation was almost negating the Psycho haze.

"Execute. Out."

There was a final moment of silence before hell was unleashed. From COEN-Twelve was long and low thump as a column of steel rain, loosed from a minigun, turned a watchtower and it's occupant to splinters and traced across the ground, kicking up a wall of dirt as bullets slammed into the earth, before striking the second watchtower. Simultaneously COEN-Nine spat out two bursts, each composed of three 25mm grenades which slammed into the structures outside the walls. They imploded beneath a cloud of smoke and dust.

"Come one lads!" Sutler yelled as he stood up and charged at the palisade ahead. There was another burst of fire as the COEN-Twelve obliterated the final watchtower that covered Schubert and his men's route to the compound. Sutler pulled a plasma grenade from his chest rig and let it fly at the wall ahead, detonating in a brilliant green light that instantly liquefied the sturdy wall into a glowing puddle of green ooze. As the energy dissipated, Sutler could see through the whole the gathered crowd that COEN-Twelve had identified scattering; aiming down the sights of the Gauss Pistol he pulled the trigger. The gun cracked loudly as the slim round broke the sound barrier and caught a scruffy looking mutant in leather in the torso. It tumbled perfectly, blasting everything around the rib-cage into a cloud of red mist and Sutler felt his eyes flick open in awe. A second blast went off as Schubert and his men blast through their part of the wall, the air crackling as the vibrant green energy dissipated.

Crossing the distance to the hole blasted in the weak palisade Sutler say the gawkers scattered, running in all directions. They lacked even the weak combat tactics of the Chinese. He fired again, backed up with bolts of red and green from his men and Schubert's clearing their breach. The people in the courtyard didn't stand a chance, cut down in the lethal light-show, distinctions between those armed and those not both unperceivable and unimportant. They didn't vanish in flashes of blue light like the corpses in the simulations, instead remaining on the ground in grotesque formations, often only partly whole and smoldering with residual energy and heat from the energy weapons.

Striding across to the nearest building, Sutler planted his boot through the flimsy sheet metal that construed its walls and felt the weak structure rock beneath the force. The sheet of metal flew across the small space and Sutler stepped in, a man in the corner, shielding behind him a women and child hopelessly raised a weapon before Sutler fired – painting him across the wall. Sutler turned, but the sound of cry, laden with repressed sobs, turned him back around. The women was crawling from his position to the fallen shotgun by the man's shattered body. Crossing the space in two strides, Sutler stamped on the gun, crushing the barrel beneath his boot before casually flicking the women back into his corner with the tip of his boot.

"Don't move!" He yelled at her.

The whole show was over in minutes, troops clearing each structure of those daring to even raise a weapon against them whilst the Vertibirds in the air cut down those fleeing with a storm of bullets from their mounted miniguns.

Sutler stepped back into the courtyard as the battle waned, the final blast of gunfire silenced by the hiss of a laser. He looked around at those disseminated through-out the courtyard, strewn like litter across the dirt. With his free hand he drew his P90c, wafting it casually through the air, pulling the trigger for an occasional burst to silence the few remaining groans of agony. Stowing the weapon he raised his radio again.

"COEN-Twelve, this is Charlie-Actual. Over."

Copy Charlie-Actual. Over."

"Any more runners?"

"Negative Charlie-Actual. All hostiles neutralised. Over."

"Copy. Rounding remaining populace around the well. Requesting further orders. Out."

As he spoke and the dust settled, the remaining people from the settlement were evicted from their homes; some dragged bodily by Enclave soldiers to form a huddled pile of weeping and confused mutants in the centre of the settlement. As the final one was thrown into the huddled crowd Sutler drew his weapon on a women, her face a glistening mask of tears.

"You!" He barked. "Who's in-charge of this place?"

Wordlessly, she pointed to a man lying in the dirt, a gaping whole glowing with florescent green in his chest.

"Fuck," Sutler cursed. The enemy "commander" was dead, double PT for them all probably. He drew his radio again.

"ENCOM this is Charlie-Actual. Over."

"Copy Charlie-Actual. Over." Though distant, the voice of the man at Navarro was clear.

"Objectives complete. Requesting further orders. Over."

"Copy Charlie-Actual." There was a brief pause for effect, Sutler greatly suspecting that their subsequent orders were already there. "Charlie-Actual, orders from Command. Eliminate remaining illegal aliens. Over."

"WILCO ENCOM. Charlie-Actual out."

He stowed the radio before taking a side-long look at the mass of people around the well, just over a dozen; non-combatants to be sure but definitely mutants. He raised a first before twirling his fingers in a circle in the air. The nearby troops gathered around.

"Orders from command are to eliminate these people. Nobody can remain."

There was a grumble of agreement but to Sutler's honest surprise Autumn spoke up.

"The battle is over Sut… Acting-Sergeant. Are you certain of your orders."

"Yes _Private_ ," Sutler said with deliberate emphasis. It felt strange, the granting of a temporary title placing him above the man he thought of as his big brother. "Kill them all," he said simply.

"But…" Autumn's voiced shook with a sincerity that Sutler had honestly never imagined from the strutting, confident figure of Augustus Autumn.

"They're already dead anyway," Drexler said. "Either us or the Project. Who cares?"

Sutler looked back at the crowd, a women was closest to him, muffling her bawling into the crook of her elbow before looking up to turn a tear streaked and frightened face to him. Sutler remembered his father before he left for Navarro that last time and of coming home one day to see a uniformed officer presenting his mother with a folded flag whilst _she_ cried.

"Drex is right," Sutler said softly, aiming his pistol at the women. "These mainlanders are already dead anyway."

He fired.

* * *

Stood smartly to attention in the barrack room, Sutler shone with pride as the President Dick Richardson himself turned away from his adjutant and pressed a black leather box into Sutler's hands. Inside were a pair of badges, the Combat Infantryman Badge of a musket on a blue enamel rectangle and the crossed lightening and rifle of the air assault badge. On top was a yellow and black shoulder tab reading "AIRBORNE". He saluted the President. He was finally a man.


	9. Part 2 (Navarro), Chapter 1

**May 6th** **, 2242**

 **Control Station Enclave, Deck 5**

 **86 days till the Project**

Deck 5 was primarily administrative in nature. Administration was not combat, nor could be called soldiering with any degree of honesty. Yet D5.11, a sub-office operated by the Financial Corps was were Sutler found himself, counting down the last few weeks of his rotation with the same inventory reports he'd been processing for the past year. He shared the office with Sergeant Elliot, a slightly older man than himself. He had a smutty pin-up calendar over his desk, presently depicting a very unprofessional way of cleaning a Vertibird, with the printed year "2239" crossed out along with another two handwritten years; the boxes marked with snipped miniscule script so that they could be re-used. His breath stank of stale coffee, which he was forever drinking, cleverly beating the ration by reusing the grounds more than the socially acceptable amount. He was the perfect joyless, penny-pinching drone for this kind of drudgery.

"You mock this place Sutler," Elliot was lecturing, without provocation at the back of Sutler's head. "But someone's got to do it, you think all the soldiers at Navarro could do their jobs if the Depots were run by _robots_? You should know Sutler, you're from the lower decks; it's not the soldiers that keep this placing running."

"You know you are still a soldier as-well right? This is still the Army." Sutler sighed. It pained him somewhat to call Elliot a soldier, even in a technical manner, the guy had opted out of the bi-weekly combat sims they all still ran by training to be an Army Dentist – another perfect job for this man.

"Yeah well you know what I mean; you're not a kid another Private and the Army isn't like the short-stories. You're going to the ECC next right? He spotted Sutler's almost unperceivable head-nod. "Yeah well that's not all that fun either, I've done that too, just training drills and the occasional flight to one of the Caches'. And this Sergeant Granite guy you've got, I've met him before and he seems like a bit of a dick frankly."

"I'll reserve my judgement till I've met him sir," Sutler would be damned if he'd take character statement from Elliot. Trapped between the flickering computer and this excruciating conversation, the sudden announcement pips from the PA speaker was a welcome relief. In-unison, they both inclined their heads towards it in a token gesture of acknowledgement that it wasn't just going to be a standard announcement. It was not.

"Attention, attention. All U.S. Citizens. A televised Presidential Address is imminent. All non-essential personnel are given leave to view. I repeat…"

Non-essential was certainly an apt word and, without asking permission, Sutler reached over and locked his computer screen before getting up.

"Have you…" Elliot turned around, noticed the locked screen on the computer before turning back to his work.

"You're not coming sir?" Sutler asked, the anticipation possibly noticeable in his voice.

"It'll be over the PA and I have work to do," he said dismissively.

It was with no small amount of relief that Sutler stepped out alone into the central corridor, taking in a breath of clean air. The corridor was already becoming more crowded, a sea of blue jumpsuits mixed with tan fatigues like his own heading to the public television mounted onto a support column further up. He followed them, settling into the back a dense hemisphere of people gathering around the screen and its static image of the Presidential Seal. Office workers stood around gossiping and Sutler say a man lift a boy onto his shoulders so he could see over the crowd. The screen flickered to life and the visage of President Richardson, the old man whom had served in that office for so-long, his gaunt complexion (even for the Enclave) and wispy silver-hair almost indistinguishable in the monochrome screen.

"My fellow Americans," he began, sombre and professional despite the lightness of tone and jovially nature he was known for. It made every address a ticking time-bomb through the preamble, unable to gauge whether it was giving everyone good or bad news.

"The pictures from the mainland have filled us with disbelief, sadness and an un-yielding anger at the acts of mass-murder perpetrated by the Chinese aggressors. This terrible act of a dying, failed nation was intended to force the destruction of our nation, but they have failed. Our country is strong and we, the American people, have been moved to great acts in order to ensure its survival.

I speak of-course of The Project, for there is no other. It is simply T _he_ Project, and in it we have invested all of our hopes and dreams of a future for our children. A land of homes instead of quarters, and of picket-fences instead of walls. For as-much as we love the ENCLAVE for the shelter it has granted it has granted us not where we belong. Our birth-right, the land of our fore-fathers, rests across the sea in the hands of the enemy. And we here have toiled endlessly for a return to the way things should be for the future does not belong to the faint-hearted, it belongs to the brave.

And it is with great honour, and pleasure, that I bring to you to-day the news I have been given from Lieutenant-Colonel Doctor Charles Curling of the U.S. Chemical Corps. That The Project will reach Stage 4, deployment, in three months."

Sutler felt a wave wash over him, a shock to the senses he hadn't felt since hearing of his father's passing; a mixture of great change to the natural order of things that he was only just beginning to process. Even the President fell silent at the words, allowing the entire Enclave to take breath.

"At times it has seemed hopeless, even impossible," the President continued. He spoke with a rising gravitas, as though the weight of his own words had affected even him – the President of all people.

"I remember, as do many of you, when the Project was first announced all those decades ago. And like the Great War it became a fact of life, a natural order to the world. 'The Project will be finished _one day_ '. Well compatriots, I tell you that that day is upon us and our salvation is at-hand.

What we have achieved is not just a victory for the American people, though it will stand as our greatest accomplishment I'm sure, but for the human race itself. And in this great act we will have not only secured our _future_ , but affirmed our _right_ to exist. That our nation shall have a new birth in freedom and that government, of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. I'd like to take you all in the national anthem now, united in song as-well as in spirit on this occasion."

Sutler felt his back stiffen as the tune washed over him.

 _"From the ashes of war, compatriots stand_

 _Between their loved ones and nuclear desolation._

 _United we fight, to reclaim our homeland_

 _Praise the Enclave that saved and preserved us our nation!_

 _For the Red rockets' glared, and atom bombs burst in air_

 _But we proved through the fight, that our flag is still here._

 _And that Star - Spangled Banner forever will wave_

 _O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."_

The Enclave was silent for a moment.

"Effective immediately, all non-essential personnel are granted leave. God bless you all. And God bless America."

The image of the President vanished from the screen, replaced by a static image. The text read "Project Phase 4 in: 86 days."

The hallway exploded. The noise was deafening, reverberating from the walls and echoing down, and indeed from, everyone in the Enclave. Somewhere before Sutler, a young man in olive fatigues took a women by the waist and kissed her. Beside him a much older women was crying silently, tears running through creases of her face.

"By golly, I can't believe I lived to see the day…" she murmured reverently to herself.

It was the same everywhere, the young were joyous and bounding with energy whilst the old and middle-aged stood reflective and silent. Sutler felt more in-common with these people at the moment, they whom had sacrificed their time and he who had lost his father to The Project. On what was the greatest celebration of his life, the President's words just made him think of his father and how he wasn't here to see it all. But it _was_ a happy day and he felt a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth regardless.

"We've won the war," Sutler said to himself. "God damn-it we've actually won."

Already though the crowd was dispersing, given leave for the rest of the evening to spend in common rooms and mess halls alike. It was probable that rationing had been suspended like it often was for public holidays and he knew that there'd been a trip to a mainland cache not long ago. Navigating the clusters of people he made his way back to D5.11. Elliot sat at his desk, ignoring the flickering green text on the monitor before him.

"I can't believe it," he said softly and Sutler felt all the animosity in him drain away. Elliot logged out of his terminal. "It's actually going to happen."

"What are you going to do sir?" Sutler asked.

"I think I'm going to go home to be with my mom and dad," he said, standing up and getting his tunic. "You?"

* * *

The door to the Deck 11 Galley slid open and a mixture of sweat and stale grease hit him in the face along with a raucous din of music and loud voices from inside. There were few olive uniforms in-sight, just a mess of shabby overalls. A young man in a reactor red jumpsuit was dancing the Lindy Hop on-top of a table with a women in mechanical green – her hair still wrapped up in a kerchief from day of working over a lathe. The jukebox belting out the Bugle Call Rag. The usual gang of old-boys by the bar, hands wild in gesticulation mid-way through some old story. Even the box with a rebreather mask in that he'd picked up at the Deck 8 reception that slapped off his thigh with every step. He was home again. No dull military talk over light music, constant saluting and two-drink maximum.

He got a few looks as he entered, nods and waves of recognition that he returned in-time as he weaved through the crowd to the bar where Perivale, the Handy bartender, he been deployed so that the regular staff could enjoy the festivities.

"Ah Mr Sutler, good evening," it said in the faux-British accent. Truth be told, Sutler didn't like robots or the false emotional layers that had been placed over them. "I haven't seen you in a long time, what can I get you Sir?"

"That's _Private_ Sutler, Percy," Sutler said sternly he produced a ration book and a couple of dull dollar coins. "Just beer will do for now," he made to hand them over. The robots hand deftly plucked the coins from his open palm but refused the book. "Rations off for to-night sir," he continued, un-phased by Sutler's earlier dismissiveness. "Alcohol anyway, a gift from His Excellency President Richardson."

Fucking British programming.

"Yeah thanks," Sutler grabbed the non-descript bottle and took a swig before hearing a familiar cry behind him.

"Alan!" It was his mother, skirting through the crowd she through her arms around and kissed both his cheeks before stepped back and beaming. "What a great day eh? Come-on, your Grandfather is here."

He followed her back through the crowd to a space near the wall were the aged Alfred Steinmetz sat in a wheel-chair. He smiled warmly and offered his hand which Sutler took.

"Hi Grandad."

"Damn," he retracted his hand. "They've certainly made a man out of you ain't they, you were nothing but skin and bones a few years ago son."

"I suppose so," Sutler said with a laugh. "It's not all just sat around in simulations like you told me."

"Yes well," he said gruffly, taking a quick sip of his own beer. "You been sat on your ass all day at that place they've had you in for the past year. That's not proper work for a Steinmetz, it means stone mason you know. Working with your hands like, proper work; I'll never know why you went off to be a soldier."

"It just felt like the right thing Granddad," he kept a smile on his face for the sake of appearances, there was no point trying to explain the simulations to him.

"Don't be so hard on him Dad," his mother interjected, tapping him roughly on the arm. "He's worked really hard… is that your friend Autumn over there Alan."

"I shouldn't im…" he exhaled derisively but was cut-off mid-sentence. Autumn was indeed stood there in the doorway, looking around with puzzlement at the scene he had walked into - looking up and down the dancing couple several times.

"Oi! Autumn!" Sutler shouted; Autumn turned, noticed and a smile of pleasant recognition washed over him.

"Figured I'd find you down here Sport. Why good evening Mrs Sutler," he offered her his hand and received it with a slight incline of the head. "And this gentlemen?"

"Oh err, that's my Granddad. This is Private Autumn Granddad."

Autumn offered him his hand which Alfred took after a moment of hesitation.

"Just Augustus Autumn tonight thank you," he said with a placating smile.

"Hark at you," Alfred said taking the man's hand. "Slumming it down here with the snipes tonight son? Alfred Steinmetz by the way." It was an odd union, his Grandfathers old and weathered hand, bruised with burns and calluses and Autumn's fresh hand.

"Yes well I as I say sir, I figured Alan would be down here."

"Yeah but why are you?" Sutler asked. "Wouldn't you rather but up on the top-deck with your father?"

"No," he responded flatly. Sutler didn't pry any further, Autumn had always been cagy about mentions of his father and despondent when people lauded his work on the Project.

"Well it's good to see you anyway," Sutler continued, breaking an akward pause. "Honestly didn't think I'd be seeing you till we join Granite's squad. Fancy the odds of getting the team back together?"

"Well actually I…" Autumn began sheepishly, "had a few strings pulled after I you mentioned your rotation."

Alfred made what was probably intended to be an inaudible grunt at Autumn's words.

"I'm honoured," Sutler was genuinely taken aback. "Not enjoying life back up-top?"

"More like you couldn't survive without me sport," Autumn laughed. "And… no not really. I didn't sign-up to be my father's adjutant."

He looked around.

"I'm not intruding am I?"

"Don't be silly August," Lily-Ann Sutler made shoeing gesture with her hand. "A friend of Alan's is welcome here."

"Well thank you ma'am," he performed another of his soft, placating smiles on her. "Actually I'd like to ask Mr Steinmetz a question."

"The chair or the scar son?"

Alfred had, around his right-temple, a large circular indentation which continued in a small furrow across his forehead.

"The scar sir, if you don't mind."

"Oh of-course," he fidgeted in his chair, sitting up. "It's not one of your 'traumatic' war wounds son. Got it on the job down here didn't I?"

"Yes, Alan tells me you did external repairs?"

"Oh yes that was it," he'd become much more animated, it took something from the obvious hostility that he laced his every word with Autumn which was certainly not as subtle as the old man thought. "I was an abseiler you know, went down the legs of this great thing – down to sea level at-times mind you – to repaint and get rid of all the rust. In full Hazmat too and those things don't carry their weight like that fancy armour of years. And that was when it happened, down there right above the ocean. This great big wave blind-sided me, smashed me against the platform against this big bolt sticking out of it. Went straight through the visor, into my head and I was dragged across the damn thing."

"Incredible," Autumn said. "It's funny, you don't think about the ocean, even though we live on an Oil Rig."

"Maybe not you but I certainly did," Alfred continued. "Luckily I didn't go fully under with a cracked visor, got me back up and on a Rad-Away drip. Could have been the snip for me otherwise, then you wouldn't have young Alan here."

"Dad," Lily-Ann interjected. "Don't be disgusting."

"It's the truth Lily, a splash to the face was passable but if I'd swallowed some of the stuff…"

He trembled slightly.

"Well it doesn't bear thinking about really."

"Copy that," Sutler said with a nervous laugh.

"Well you thank you sir," Autumn said politely.

"For what son?"

"Putting yourself out there to keep the Enclave up and running."

"Oh," Alfred too was genuinely stunned to silence. "Thank you son. I appreciate that."

"You want to get a beer Autumn?" Sutler asked. "You're looking pretty thirsty."

"Why I do declare that is the most sensible suggestion you have ever made sport."

* * *

"Make it one last one Percy," Sutler said, digging the last few dollars out and slamming them onto the bar.

"Coming Private Sutler," the robot scuttled by and picked up the coins. "And do please mind the counter-surface sir. I am authorised to deduct repair costs from your paycheck."

"Fucking Robots," Sutler muttered. He glanced at Autumn who was staring back across the room. The hour was late, Sutler's mother having taken his Grandfather back home. The music was softer, a slow jazz arrangement of Battle Hymn of the Republic to which remaining couples were slowing dancing.

"You remember Sutler, years ago," Autumn said. "Top-side about relaxing on our porches on the mainland."

"Yeah sure,"

"Don't you think it's all bullshit?"

Sutler frowned before taking a swig of beer.

"Not really, fuck are you talking about?"

"Why do you want to own a house, with a front lawn and just lay in the Sun? Do you even want to do that?"

Sutler was quiet for a few moments, Autumn was always getting at something and he could never figure out what.

"Yeah why not, isn't that what we're supposed to do when we're old?"

"Yeah but why, you know the answer."

"Because that's what people used to do."

"And it's what you want to do? Mix and match slacks and shirts, mow the lawn… et-cetera?"

"Oh fuck," Sutler sighed. "Philosophical Autumn's here. Fucking Oorah! Go on, go on say your piece."

"I just don't know, doesn't sit right with me. I like the Oil Rig and I like my uniform. Why can't we just stop pretending to aspire so something we're not? Look past the picture books Sutler, if we ever met one of them. A pre-war. I don't think we'd like them."

"Why? We're all just Americans."

"They were different sport; like _really_ different to what we are. And I don't think they'd like us either. Do you really think the average pre-war would just sit back and let the government kill everyone else in the world?"

"I don't know Autumn… but the war, they kind of did. We're just putting things back to normal again."

"But do you want their normal?"

"Look," Sutler was exhausted. "I don't fucking know, nor care at this point. You think too much Autumn, that's your problem."

"And sometimes you don't think _enough_ Alan," Autumn said with a smile.

"I just know one thing Autumn. Everything on this Oil Rig has just been the build-up for a new life after the Project, it was going to come in our life time. It was out of our control. This was always going to happen. We _are_ the future."

"To the future then," Autumn said, raising his beer. "And what-ever it may bring."


	10. Part 2 (Navarro), Chapter 2

**1st June, 2242**

 **60 Days till the Project**

The day of Sutler's re-location from the bureaucratic drudgery of Financial couldn't come soon enough, along with terminating his relationship with the pudgy mass of Sergeant Elliot. The brief spark of good-will he had granted the man burned out the next morning as he gleefully announced the mass order of work that had come in from the Deck 5 Commissary and had slammed a large stack of papers onto Sutler's desk in a move he was certain had been intended to exacerbate his pounding headache. But that was over and he was going back to the ENCLAVE Control Company, the ECC. Nebulous in its actual purpose, the ECC served as a holding unit for a great many of the USJF's personnel where no specific duties could be found. They patrolled the Oil Rig, manned security stations, performed manual labour, did inspections and drilled – almost endlessly – for the myriad of "Emergency Scenarios" that might befall the Oil Rig from an enemy assault to reactor failure. If it weren't for the fact that so many of the Enclave was _in_ the ECC they'd probably be disliked a lot more than they already were, where-ever a drill was being ran meant that everyone involved had to take part – and nothing irked the scientists more than mere "Jarheads" like themselves taking up a day's worth of work to "play games".

There were however some drawbacks, Sutler had known his new CO before but not where he was being posted. The ENCLAVE had 16 Decks, built into a hermetically sealed cylindrical silo supported between the four legs of the platform, with the President on the top and the reactor on the bottom; sandwiched in-between the reactor and the fab-labs in Deck 13 was the dock on Deck 14 where the crew of a Poseidon Energy Tanker could come aboard the Oil Rig. Of-all of the Decks on the Oil Rig, Deck 14 was the least visited, and it was the Deck to which he was assigned under Sergeant Granite. The Sergeant had a ready room right beside the surprising large and spacious lobby. In the world of the Enclave, where the underside of stairwells were used as storage, rooms this large and empty simply did not exist; if only he'd know about it as a kid, the mock battles they could have staged in here. The room seemed to have captured Autumn's thoughts too, though for likely dissimilar reasons.

"Look at all this room," he said as Sutler came up behind him. He flapped his hands with a sigh. "How many containers from the Caches could we fit in here? All those flights to the Mainland these decades… over time it would have added up."

"Because, Private Autumn," a gravelly voice from behind them rang out. "Where would the mainlanders enter if this place was attacked by sea?"

They both turned around and away from the room to see a figure behind them, like Autumn and Sutler he had removed his helmet and Sutler saw why a pudgy man like Sergeant Elliot would be wary of this him. What-ever existed under his armour, Sutler didn't know, but Granite's neck was as thick as his head and its bulging mass at-odds with his slender and angularly features.

"Here sir."

"Exactly," Granite replied with a sly grin. "This room is a killing-field. Besides, doing Cache, or Cattle, runs is about the only time we get in the field in the ECC so be grateful. Oh shit your Autumn," he glanced at Autumn's name on his chest plate and then at Sutler. "Son of one of the greatest Boxers in the Enclave? Pleasure to meet you, Horatio Granite – Sergeant."

"Yeah," Autumn said sourly. "My Dad is the best. Augustus Autumn… _Junior_."

"Is that a Yuma Flatts?" Sutler interjected, looking at the sleek rifle Granite held at his side.

"What, this little thing," Granite said in a mockingly coy tone, he bared his teeth in a wide grin. "Hell yeah, Horatio Granite and _his electric rifle_. Do you know how many cans of freeze-dried coffee me an d this beast have escorted back from the Sonoma Coast? Well you let me tell you," he stopped laughing. "Quite a fucking lot. But I earned this gun, I ain't giving it just for a Mainland posting. Ain't gonna matter after the Project anyhow. But I understand that I have another aficionado of the finer-side of death dealing here with me to-day. Private Sutler," he looked back at Sutler and smiled. "Let's have a look soldier."

Sutler drew his Gauss Pistol from his chest rig, flipped it casually in his hand and tossed it, grip first, at Granite whom caught it deftly. "Walther PPK12… not bad. Why not go for the full rifle if you got this far?"

"Sutler's always been weird about handguns," Autumn said dryly.

"Look," Sutler interjected, like anyone who had earned a weapon better than the standard AER he was oddly defensive about his gun. "She may be small but, Christ, she can put a round through you at Mach 1.5 if I choose."

"Small and fast," Granite said, weighing the gun. "Sounds perfect for you Private." He ran his thumb along down the large circular coils that jutted from the barrel.

"Very funny Sir."

Granite laughed heartily and tossed the weapon back.

"Where would the GI be without innuendo? Glad to have both of you guys aboard. Let me give you the run down here," he placed his hands on his hips, screwing his face into an expression of upmost seriousness. "We are among the first response team in the event of an attack by a hostile force!" He suddenly barked in a manner that reminded Sutler of Sergeant Hillenkoetter. "Where-upon it will be your sacred duty to fight and die for your country! But until that happens we'll mostly just aimlessly make our presence felt around here and sit back and play cards." He gave a hearty laugh and cracked another huge grin.

"Sorry its nothing better boys but, well shit, we ain't going to have much to shoot at in a few months anyway so make the most of it. Young boys like us will probably be getting _long_ rotations on the mainland soon enough."

 **5th June, 2242**

 **56 Days till the Project**

Everyone was talking about Navarro, technically they shouldn't be but word always got around fast. There had been a spy at Navarro. An actual spy, not just some dumb mainlander who wandered too close and came across a patrol but an honest-to-God operative of an enemy force that had been gathering information on them and _successfully_ too if the rumours were to be believed. Who-ever the women was didn't matter anymore, she was probably dead and tossed overboard by now, but the group that she had worked for one Sutler vaguely remembered from a Threat Assessment seminar – the Brotherhood of Steel. The Brotherhood of Steel was the most organised threat against them on the mainland besides the Chinese occupation force in San Francisco, had access to power armour units and energy weapons, and were not to be taken lightly.

Navarro had since found itself rapidly brought into line, the base had always been too large for the amount of personnel assigned there and this had really opened some eyes amongst the top-deck brass. The place was already crawling with civies doing work related to the post-Project colonisation but now the ECC was being gutted to provide more bodies to patrol the huge facility.

"I do not envy the son-of-a-bitch they pin this on," Granite remarked over a steaming cup of coffee in the ready-room. "That poor asshole is going to be on Laundry rotation till the end of time. And that women they caught," Granite exhaled sharply. "God only knows what was left of her after the SS was done with her – they probably got Horrigan in."

The SS, the Secret Service, was the Enclave's resident bogeymen – sure a lot was made of the Chinese occupiers in San Francisco but they were just a talking point. The real shady business went on on-board the Oil Rig itself in the Service's offices on Deck 2. Save for providing personnel security for the President, which itself was is just a Legacy procedure, very little about they're more practical responsibilities was known. After the War, SS had absorbed the remains of the pre-war Intelligence Community making it responsible for gathering intelligence on external threats as-well as the nebulous notion of "internal security". The notion that they were being secret policed was enough to send a chill down Sutler's, and indeed anyone's spine. The Enclave was not a big, happy family, there were: family feuds, Deck, and department rivalries, drunken spats and lovers tiffs, but the notion that someone around him might secretly harbour seditious and subversive thoughts was an anathema – an impossibility surely? Desertions, the most taboo of subjects, were not unheard of it was true – even if they were labelled as "MIA" – but they happened to _other_ people not the people Sutler knew.

They even had their own literal monster in the form of Frank Horrigan, a former human whom had been at Mariposa with his father. It had been one of the most heated subjects in the Enclave at the time, back in 2236, and tough Sutler was too young to take part – and more concerned about the fate of his father – he still remembered the blocs and committees raging into the night about the affair. Standard procedure was sterilisation, it had happened a few times down on the Reactor level during an accident, but Horrigan wasn't even remotely human anymore. Many had argued for euthanasia as a brave soldier whom was subject to a fate worse than death and that his confessed loyalty to the Enclave was the product of a deluded mind, whilst the others argued that he remained loyal and remained a valuable asset to the nation that they could not simply cast aside. In the end this side one and Horrigan got himself a promotion to the ranks of the Secret Service. He wasn't an easy figure to hide, not anonymous like everyone else in their power armour, and when – earlier in the week – Horrigan had been on the flight deck the whole Enclave knew that someone on the Mainland was in for a rude awakening.

"Mutant whore got what she deserved," Sutler said coldly.

"No doubt," Autumn said with a sharp exhale. Nobody liked to dwell on what Horrigan was capable of.

It was then that a wall-mounted telephone rang.

"D14.2, Sergeant Granite speaking. Err… yes sir, yes sir. We'll be there straight away Sir. Over and out." Granite replaced the receiver, paused to gulp down the remains of his coffee – wincing at the heat. "We got to move out," he coughed. "D5.16."

"The Briefing Room?"

"Yeah Sutler, looks like things might not be so static to-day boy."

* * *

Sutler had never been to such a packed mission brief, admittedly he hadn't been on many Mainland excursions since graduating, and even those had only been Cache runs to Austin Creek. The place was crammed like a safety seminar but without the seats, troopers in armour jostling past one-another before the podium at-which half-a-dozen officers in dull olive tunics were milling about. Sutler and company signed the clipboard as they entered before the young officer darted off with it to the men on the podium.

"Right," a women with Captain's bars pinned to her black lapels yelled. "Listen up soldiers. My name is Captain Bradley, US Secret Service. At zero-three-hundred hours, PST, on the 3rd of June, a Secret Service task-force under Special Agent Horrigan was deployed to the occupied city of San Francisco with the objective of locating and neutralising a known Brotherhood of Steel facility."

A small murmur floated through the gathered troopers, Horrigan suspicions confirmed.

"This operation was a success and we recovered intelligence has revealed several other Brotherhood of Steel locations through-out the region to be neutralised."

There was more murmuring amongst the crowd.

"If we're this close to the completion of the Project, why risk the man-power?" Autumn whispered in Sutler ear; Sutler nodded slightly. It did seem like an unnecessary risk. Apparently the feeling was common and expected, a flustered look coming over the haughty officer.

"This order comes directly from the President," she said simply, a powerful act of placating any crowd. "The recovery of Mainlander test subjects, such as Arroyo last week, is still required for the Project. It is vital to ensure that any threats to Navarro that might disrupt our Mainland operations are neutralised as soon as-possible. This is the President's instruction." She cleared her throat and continued as-though uninterrupted.

"We have learned through the San Francisco operation that these Brotherhood of Steel facilities have been re-activated as a _direct response_ to our Mainland operations with the function of determining the nature of those operations. This operation is vital to ensuring our national security. The locations that we have identified are the following."

Somewhere on stage, someone clicked a button and a slide showing a map of California was displayed on the screen behind the women, marked with five red points (one of which was San Francisco); Captain Bradley picked-up a small metal pointer.

"We have identified four further locations. Weed, Siskiyou County, known on the Mainland as "the Den"."

Though likely a no-name place before the War the name, Siskiyou County, was one well known through-out the Enclave as the site of the "Klamath Incident" when a Vertibird had gone down in the county, due to a malfunction, earlier last year. They'd sent in a big recovered team followed by an inspection of a nearby settlement; no-wonder the Brotherhood thought that they might have other interests in the area.

"Weed was a former lumber town," Bradley continued. "Estimated population in-excess of four-hundred. Place is remote and poorly organised, no local resistance is expected. Recovered intelligence indicates a permanent garrison of four. Sergeant Granite you have been tasked with the neutralisation of this facility. "

She rattled off the remaining three locations, all of which – bar one – shared the common thread of being areas of high Vertibird activity recently. Reno, or New Reno, where the Enclave frequently traded low-grade energy weapons for chemical supplies and slaves with a Mainland syndicate. An outpost in western-Nevada close by a Poseidon Energy nuclear power station which had had a surviving PoseidoNet connexion and had inadvertently raised the Oil Rig before it was destroyed in a subsequent assault. The only outlier was a bunker at Lone Pine, in Western California. Though it was true that the Enclave had been Vault 13, a location quite close to the settlement, more than likely the reason for this location was that Lone Pine had since become a rather large post-war city and the seat of a locally declared government – the New California Republic. All locations outside of the NCR were to be neutralised; the base at Lone Pine had been granted reprieve due to the perceived threat posed by the NCR if it were to be engaged.

After getting the run-down they went over a threat-assessment of the Brotherhood of Steel: access to high-grade military armaments, including power armour, small-unit tactics. Take prisoners only when no risk to combat effectiveness. Threat assessment: Severe.

"This is a Secret Service operation," Bradley said. "Not ECC. File your After-Action Reports to my name at SS-EnclaveNet. Any questions? Good. Prep for immediate deployment. You're dismissed."

* * *

"Oh Mainlanders, don't you run from me! I'm coming off the Oil Rig with my rifle on my knee! Come on Autumn, join in, it's a southern classic." Granite laughed, his booming voice clearly audible even over the roar of the Vertibird's engines. "What's the matter, you get airsick?"

"No Sergeant," Autumn responded, pensively. "Just a little nervous I guess. Why I must say, going up against PA… even the 45d can take a glancing blast from a laser." He cradled his laser rifle rather consciously.

"Don't sweat it boy," Granite dropped his good-humoured façade, taking on a firm tone. "There's plenty of fire-power here to down what-ever they got. Hell," he broke tone, laughing again heartily. "I'd take 'em all on myself. Got a buddy at Navarro getting his ass reamed because of these guys… I owe him a couple bodies. What about you Sutler? You feelin' it?"

"Yes Sergeant," Sutler smirked back. "Nothing stops Gauss. End of story."

"That's the right attitude boy. Err… Sergeant?"

Granite indicated the Secret Service soldier, who had spent most of the flight quietly stood by the door watching the world flash by in the gathering dawn. Sutler had been watching her through-out the flight; he imagined the woman, Sergeant Keats, watching the world beneath her and wishing she could set it, and all the Mainlanders, ablaze – the SS were known for a special kind of zealotry.

"Just looking forward to boots on the ground Sergeant Granite, you follow my lead and we'll make this a clean op. Which is to say of-course, quite messy." She let out a sinister chuckle. "Just think about it, the first and last power-armour on power-armour engagement before we gas these freaks out from the face of our Earth… it's beautiful in its own way."

Sutler sniggered as Granite mouthed something obscene at him behind her back.

The Vertibird began descending towards the small town nestled between the hills and blasted forest-scape.

"Standby," the pilot yelled. "Get ready for drop."

"Pop your meds boys," Sergeant Keats said and Sutler drew a dose of Psycho from his kit and slid it through the slot into his left fore-arm.

"Kill 'em all," he stammered, his neck twitching, as he slid the plunger down on the combat-drug. There was a flash of haziness, a single drunken throb in his head before everything came into brilliant focus.

The four soldiers took their places at the side doors of the Vertibird which folded back with a billowing gust of outside air. The small county police station on the outskirts of town, where the Brotherhood were based, was looming closer. A squat one-story building, surrounded by a small barricade of US Army bunker-kit pieces painted in the familiar olive green. It sickened Sutler somewhat to see something so familiar to him used by an enemy. The Vertibird slowed into a hovering pattern right before the entrance to the building, a lone figure in dull combat armour was scrambling to find cover somewhere before the Vertibird loosed a single missile at the front-doors of the building. It made the space in seconds, exploding somewhere in the lobby of the police station, blasting chunks of masonry into the air as the ceiling and outer-walls exploded outwards from the missile. The police station begun to collapse and the Vertibird swung round in the air exposing the two Sergeants at the right-hand door to the scene. They rained down on the armoured figure as he struggled to regain his footing and he burst into flames under the torrent of laser fire.

At a command from Sergeant Keats, they dropped into combat, the ancient tarmac of the road beneath them poweredised beneath the tread of power armoured boots. Keats was already on her radio, Autumn and Granite making towards the ruined building with weapons ready. Sutler spun around scanning across the street from the station; tracing the sights of his pistol across the ruined buildings he thought he caught a glimpse of one or two people watching them.

"CEON-4, come in over." Keats was saying into the radio. "Structural integrity cannot be confirmed. Do no fire on the building. Star airborne and keep the mutants away from this place. You have permission to engage civilians over. Copy, over and out."

She gave a jerking motion to Sutler, he nodded and begun backing towards the building. They formed up in groups of two on either side of the rubble that had once been the main entrance to the police station. Keats stared into the room and, after a series of hand-gestures relayed their orders.

Granite began, tossing a plasma grenade into the silent lobby, barely waiting for the cracking aftermath to disappear from the air before they charged in. Sutler took an immediate left through an open doorway of the lobby into a large office; old metal desks had been pushed up against the walls to clear the floor-space for a scattering of dull metal crates that gathered around the flimsy wooden columns that rose to the ceiling. He dropped into cover just in-time as a burst of automatic laser fire came from somewhere in the room. He drew his own plasma grenade and allowed it a second to cook before sending it hurtling across the room. As it exploded, there was a great crumbling sound and a muffled yell as more of the ceiling gave way where a wooden support had been vapourised by the plasma explosion. He peered around again, aware then of the sounds of fire coming from elsewhere in the building.

He cautiously stepped from cover, striding slowly down an aisle between the stacks of crates – trained on the pile of rubble that littered the floor beneath the gaping hole in the roof. Circling the pile of rubble he saw a young men in the same combat armour struggling to dislodge his lower self from the debris and reach for his thrown laser rifle. Without pause he crossed the space to the man, whom had managed to contort himself at the sound of the encroaching thunderous footsteps to face Sutler. Without pause, Sutler brought his boot down on the man's left cheek, the combat helmet he wore simply folding down the middle and rupturing as the half buried man stopped his flailing with a soft popping sound. He didn't stay to see something red and viscous ooze from the folded helmet and what-ever remained within, instead heading to the back-wall and kicking open a fire escape. He inched out, checking the back of the building for any hostiles of which it was clear.

"Clear!" Sutler yelled.

The police station had a central, square lobby, with a row of offices running left of this which Sutler cleared. Stepping back into the building, he went through an open doorway into a small mess room which took him behind the lobby to the buildings right-side where the rest of the team where. A doorway on the other-side was where he had heard the shooting from earlier.

"Friendly!" Sutler shouted ahead of him, peering into the room to see the others crossing the distance towards him.

"One contact eliminated," he told Keats.

"Copy that, bagged two here," she thumbed the room behind her. "Just a couple of mutie's in combat armour."

They were in a small room decorated with rusty lockers and benches, grimy white tiles cracked beneath boot tread and green paint flaking from the walls. On the other-side of the room was a staircase leading down.

"Cells are down there," Keats said sourly. "Gotta clear them, line-up on me."

Sutler peered past her down the stair case, some light was spilling through a doorway at the foot of them. They watched it for a second, hoping to see a flicker of someone moving and blocking out the light. Keats had gotten half-way down the stairs when something bright and green came screaming at them and she jumped back as plasma slapping into the space where her feet and shins had been.

"Shit," she cursed, signalling them back up. "Attention hostile!" She bellowed down the staircase, now safely back in the locker room. "This is Sergeant Keats. US Joint Force. You are to surrender immediately and allow yourself to be taken into Federal custody as an illegal alien on United States territory."

"Ad Victorium!" Came the yelled response, filtered through the tinny speakers of a suit of power armour.

Sutler shared a glance with Autumn, only imagining the look of bemusement on his face.

"Fuck this," Keats traced a line from the staircase across the floor, marching along until she was satisfied. She raised a hand, making a circle with her index finger for them to gather around. Silently she pulled the plasma grenade from her chest rig and indicated a spot on the floor. Simple enough plan, just blow through and get the drop on this guy. As she prepped the grenade on the floor, everyone else stepped back. Sutler had never been so close to a plasma explosion, he could feel the heat of it even through his power armour as it erupted on the floor. That was when the situation collapsed.

Through the dissipating green energy came a burst of plasma from the floor down below, striking Sergeant Keats and she crumpled to the floor beside Sutler.

"Oh fuck,"

"Sutler! What's her status!" Granite yelled.

Sutler looked down at Keats. Her chest plate had melted away, exposing charred and blackened tissue. A faint mist was arising from inside the wound as the water inside her boiled away and Sutler was thankful for the filters on his oxygen intake. He looked away.

"She's dead Sir, fuck."

"God dammit," Granite cursed. "COEN-4 we got a KIA. Sergeant Keats over. Roger that, over and out."

Granite looked at Sutler and nodded towards the staircase. Nodding back Sutler got up, crossing the distance to it before turning back around. Granite and Autumn started firing blindly into the hole in the ground and, seeing plasma fire coming from below Sutler moved. Leaping down the stair case, he was staring down a spartan concrete corridor, one-side lined with holding cells at a figure in T51b power armour standing back from the hole above him and firing blindly into it. Sutler aimed and fired at maximum capacity, his gauss pistol erupting with a sonic bomb as a 2mm round left. The round struck the figures chest, the force causing him to stagger. Despite himself he panicked, it was the first time a single round hadn't resulted in a straight kill. He fired again and again into the figure ahead. A round struck the shoulder in the right place, causing the pauldron to explode from the frame. The Brotherhood soldier dropped his rifle, seemingly overcome with pain he fell into the wall clutching at his arm which wasn't moving.

Sutler started running, sprinting pell-mell down the corridor shoulder first. The Brotherhood soldier looked up but couldn't move in time before being slammed into the wall at end the corridor to the sound of crumbling concrete.

"Clear!" Sutler yelled and a pair of slamming sounds behind him signalled the arrival of Granite and Autumn. He punched the Brotherhood soldier in the face with the crunch of metal on metal before Granite placed an arm on his shoulder and pulled him back. He aimed his rifle at the figure against the wall and opened fire, and together Granite, Autumn and Sutler unloaded their weapons into the Brotherhood soldier.

* * *

Keats was laid out across the floor of the Vertibird on the flight back and everyone else was silent. Sutler hadn't known her, and maybe they did resent being put under the SS's command but she was still a Compatriot-in-arms. Sutler looked down at the dead women lying on the floor, he'd never even seen her face before but could still see right into the place where her heart had been before being burned away in plasma-fire. He hoped he wouldn't have to see anyone else die again in the line of-duty.


	11. Part 2 (Navarro), Chapter 3

**27th June, 2242**

 **34 Days till the Project**

Sutler had been told once before that trying to navigate a busy corridor, full of power armoured soldiers, was like trying to maneuver around a herd of on-coming forklift trucks – which was apparently not an easy feat. That would certainly be the answer from Wilfred Prendergast who was now enjoying life with a false-foot and whose misfortune was the reason why Sutler now sat on a folding chair in a Deck 6 briefing room watching a safety film on the subject.

On the screen in-front of them, the mascot of the Vault-Tec Corporation hoped wildly about clutching a foot which throbbed unrealistically huge like something from a Hubris Comics cartoon-show. Sutler could feel his eyes glazing over slightly as he watched, it was nothing he hadn't been forced to watch before after-all. He cast a side-long glance around the room at everyone else's passive expression and wondered just how the people that presented these things managed to maintain their upbeat and earnest mannerisms despite the clear apathy of the audience.

"That's why," the earnest and upbeat junior officer giving the seminar said, "It is very important to look both ways before stepping out of a room, wrongful action could cost cause somebody a debilitating injury. We all must do our part!"

It might very-well have gone on like that for the rest of the hour, and the whole cycle of: eat, sleep, shit, bureaucracy might have gone on till the end of time – in another world. For it was then that a deafening tone emanated from the PA speaker on the wall, the low warbling note echoing around the metal room. It was as the tone grew in pitch before stopping to hold a single note, that everyone in unison slowly turned to take in the monitor; the penny dropped with a loud clang that shook them all from their collective boredom as one-fact set in. That the preceding announcement of "This is a test of the Undercover alarm, no action is required" had not been given.

The tone suddenly trailed off and gave away to the voice of the announcer.

"Attention, attention. This is not a drill,"

Everyone was scrambling to their feet, folding chairs toppling over in a mad throng to get to the exit of the room whilst the cartoon continued to flicker foolishly on the wall behind them.

"Undercover is now in-effect, all non-essential personnel must report to their designated muster location and make their presence known to the Action Officer."

Sutler was out in the corridor, following thoroughfare that led towards the main stair, beside him jump-suited civilians were cautiously peering from door to find a safe-time to enter the surging throng of people trying to make it to their posts.

"Decks 12 through 16 are to be evacuated immediately. Affected personnel are to report to muster points on Decks 10 and 11. Do not pause to collect personal belongings."

The corridor was a thundering of boots, soldiers making for the Armoury to get their armour and weapons. In the drills they ran, civilians waited patiently and calmly for the soldiers to finish gearing-up; now gripped in genuine fear they scuttled down the corridor hugging the walls, not yelling or screaming but just fearfully gazing around as waves of olive and black uniforms crashed about the usually docile corridors. Sutler made it to the armoury and the series of shelves that held power armour not in-use. The floor-plan was a one-way system, you filed around the length of the room till you found your armour and then continued back until you reached the exit. He popped the seal on his suit and clambered in.

"Duty Team Charlie is to mobilise on Deck 15."

There was a collective intake of breath across the Oil Rig, the Undercover alert was a general procedure used to clear the corridors of non-emergency personnel, alone it told nothing of the nature of the emergency, but now the nature of the emergency was clear. There was something wrong with the reactor.

"Keep telephones, radios and communication system free for use for emergency personnel. Remain calm and await further instructions. Over and out."

Sutler could almost hear the spiral stairs squealing beneath the weight of the traffic; on the inside lane an endless column of power armour were taking each step two at a time, already bowed in the centre over the past century they were in serious danger of failing. On the outside lane civilians filed up slowly. Between Decks 10 and 11 Sutler saw his mother on the outside lane, she didn't recognise him in his armour and he didn't have the time or presence to say anything; a mere flash in his peripheries, he was past her in less than a second.

Sutler made it to the Ready Room on Deck 14, Autumn and Granite were already there. He snapped off a quick salute before falling-in.

"Sorry for the delay Sir," Sutler began. "Was stuck in that seminar on Deck 5."

Granite merely nodded. He span his finger around in the air as he began to march ahead out of their room and across the Enclave's large lobby. It was a side of Granite Sutler hadn't seen since the aftermath of the raid on the Brotherhood facility, the cool demeanour of a professional soldier, the determined and calculating force that had pushed him to become one of the most physically imposing men Sutler had seen. He and Autumn merely followed in Granite's wake as he led them through the Deck. They moved rapidly, single-file through the narrow corridors. Coming across, they'd slide it open and yell inside and, upon confirming clear, move onto the next. It wasn't until they got to a pumping station that they found anyone, three dirty looking workers in faded Poseidon Oil jumpsuits.

"Halt!" Granite barked at them, he raised his rifle at them and, after a moment of hesitation, so did Autumn and Sutler. "Identify." For a moment they looked shocked, probably never having a weapon aimed at them, let alone by a trooper.

"Raymond Briggs sir," one of the men said, he drew his papers and presented his papers. The others followed suit.

"Why are you and your men still here Briggs?" Granite asked.

"Essential work Sir, we were caught mid-fracturing. Can't shut off the machines till they've done processing this oil or we risk a pressure build-up and explosion. Er… EMCON D.14-08 Sir."

"Very well," Granite said. "Max-stip for that is two hours. How far along are you?"

"We should be finished in forty-five minutes sir. Look sir," he dropped the official act. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't now man," Granite sighed. "I… I have no idea. Just follow the 'cols and let's get through this alright? We're in D14.2 if you need us."

They shared a nod before Briggs turned around and began shouting orders at the other two and Autumn, and Sutler followed Granite out of the room. They checked the rest of the Deck and apart from the PO workers it was clear. Making it back to the Ready Room, Sutler and Autumn stood silently, watching Granite whom was preoccupied with pacing the length of the room. Their orders were clear, just maintain a presence on the Deck, whether to provide assistance to anyone remaining or watch for any intruders.

It remained that way for twenty minutes, pacing around the room, occasionally making checking their radios for chatter. Sutler could almost feel himself shaking in his armour, when they drilled this it was merely boring, waiting around down here for the All Clear. But to be truly left in the dark whilst something was happening was almost too much to bear. There was nothing to say, nothing to do or anyone to ask. The ticking from the PA speakers making him painfully aware of the passage of time.

Eventually all the lights went out on the Deck, only for the weak glow of sporadically placed emergency lightening to come on.

"Emergency lighting has kicked in," Autumn said stupidly into the silence, the tremble in his voice palpable. Nobody offered a response.

Even the ticking from the PA systems slowed down, a tick every other second now. Sutler fought the urge to break something, to drive his fist through the table or into a wall. He looked over at the wall-phone for the umpteenth time and caught, again, the almost unperceivable shake of the head from Granite. Only he appeared to be taking the situation passively, or at-least not betraying himself. Autumn kept looking down across the lobby, staring a point on the floor where the reactor level was right beneath their feet.

The silence was short-lived however, broken again by another klaxon bursting from the speaker system. Autumn and Granite froze for a second, being mid and upper deckers they weren't as familiar with the contamination alarm as Sutler was. After the first note his hand shot up to the radial dials on his helmet, finding the second tube. Twist and click.

"Seal your suits!" He yelled at Granite and Autumn as he felt the joints on his own armour tighten and contract as the suit became fully hermetically sealed to the outside environment.

"Fuck," Granite cursed as he performed the motion. "Contam…"

"Attention, attention." The voice came over the PA again. "Contaminants detected in atmosphere, all personnel are to secure re-breather apparatus immediately. Do not break Undercover procedure. Remain calm and await for further instructions. Over and out."

"Oh God," Granite gasped as he cracked. In the lower Decks around the Reactor, it was mandatory to always carry a re-breather. In the upper decks however they were just stored in communal pools. If muster locations were over-filled they're wouldn't be enough.

"Let's just remain calm guys," Autumn said, the filter on the suit exacerbating his heavy and nervous breathing. "It's probably just something small with the reactor that they have to inform everyone about. Just protocol…"

But even Granite was shaken now, his Yuma Flatts rifle visibly shaking in his hands. They were trained for stresses of combat but, no matter how many drills they had ran, not for this. It was all very well on the battlefield, Psycho and adrenaline coursing through you, but to stand around in both the literal and figurative darkness whilst the entire Oil Rig and everyone on-board could be snuffed out at any time was a form of psychology that they were not prepared for. It had been about ten minutes since the Contaminant alarm when the wall phone rang loudly, Granite jumping from his vigil against a wall and slamming through the a table to reach it. He almost put his hand through the device as he accepted the call and leaned in-close to the speaker.

"This D14.2, Sergeant Granite."

"Sir, this is Briggs," he sounded like he was speaking through a blocked nose. "We've a problem, there's so much blood. Bring something please." A choking, raspy cough came through the receiver.

"Stay calm Briggs, we're on our way. Just… fucking chill." He punched the disconnect button. "What are you fucking waiting for?" He burst at Sutler and Autumn before sprinting down across the lobby as they followed after him. The corridors of the Oil Rig had become dark tunnels in the emergency lighting, and Sutler felt things crushed under the treads of his boots as he ran to keep up with Granite. There was a loud bang as Granite slowed himself, seizing the open doorway to the Poseidon Oil Room with a heavy gauntlet. The room they waded into was dark and silent. Seeing Granite turn on his torch, Sutler reached for his own hanging on his chest rig and turned the switch.

"Briggs!" Granite yelled into the room. "Identify yourself!"

There was a burst of coughing from an adjoining room, Granite took off towards the sound but stopped as quick as he had started upon seeing the figure of a women unconscious on the floor that he had nearly ran through. Sutler moved in closer.

Even through the glass of his respirator, the women's pale Enclave pallor was now chalk white and streaked with blood. They couldn't see her mouth or nose but it was coming from her eyes, pooling into a reservoir where the window on the respirator pressed in around her cheeks. Her chest rose infrequently in breaths so weak that they were inaudible. Granite simply stood and stared, paralysed by in-action. They couldn't take her mask off, nor could he get out of his armour to perform even a rudimentary medical assessment. Sutler stepped over her and found another worker. He had either removed his mask or never put it on, for Sutler could see it nowhere. But the sight was the same. Blood had poured from every orifice on his face, soaking the white tee beneath his jumpsuit in crimson hues. Fresh blood was streaming from his eyes across a face coated in red smudges, his hands were covered with the stuff where he had probably tried to clear his eyes but succeeded only in spreading the stuff around.

Sutler could feel every breath catch in his throat, almost numb with a disturbed fear that he had never felt before. Another hacking wheeze from the other room was all that spurred him from his horror, and he looked around to see Briggs through a window. He was sat in small adjoining office, slumped across a desk whilst a telephone receiver, spattered in blood, lay just beyond a limp grasp.

"Mr Briggs," Sutler yelled. Briggs opened an eye, allowing fresh tears of blood to leak out across his face. "Briggs, can you respond. Where is your respirator?"

"Help," he managed, his voice rough and dry.

Granite suddenly appeared, stepping past Sutler into the office he grabbed the receiver by Briggs hands and tried to dials but his large fingers scratched futile against the rotary dial. With a roar of fury he swiped at the phone and sent it across the room and into a wall, the flimsy Bakelite thing exploding into shards of plastic.

"Sutler," he yelled. "Get back to the Ready Room and get a medic down here. Move!"

With scarcely more than a nod of acknowledgement Sutler began, sprinting through the deserted halls back to D14.2. He slipped a switch on the wall-phone and punched 911 into the keypad. It rang and kept ringing.

"All of our…" it was an electronic pre-recorded message.

"Shit," Sutler gasped. He disconnected the call and tried the general switchboard on Deck 4. It begun to ring until the phone clicked.

"Hello, switchboard. Hello," Sutler said, each syllable desperate. There was no answer from the other end.

"Fucking God…"

He ran back to the others, his heavy breathing ringing in his helmet. He felt numb all over, every breath an oscillation between blind confused rage and absolute terror. Every second he fought against the dark realisations that kept fighting the cross his mind. He had to remain on task. It was his duty.

"No answer Sir," he reported to Granite. "Tried the switchboard and got nothing."

Granite raised an armoured gauntlet to his head, lightly bumping his forehead into it.

"Get back to the room, come on we're moving out."

"But these people sir?" Autumn made to protest.

"We can't do anything until we get medical assistance. The protocols," he said the whispered the word almost reverently. "We can't leave our post in-case the Rig is attacked. We must remain vigilant. Come on."

* * *

Sutler had lost track of time, maybe even of reality itself. An hour ago he had been bored out of his mind on a routine day and now everything was falling apart and he wasn't even trying to think that deeply on the matter. He'd had a brief moment of panic after tasting blood but realised he'd been biting his lip to hard. He placed a large gauntlet around his left forearm and squeezed gently, experiencing a mad-rush at the thought of a dose of Psycho coursing through him; torn between tearing this room and everything in it to pieces and bursting into frightened tears. He was trying not to think about his mother.

He looked over at Granite who was leaning against a wall, stood perfectly silent and still. Maybe they were just going to wait, wait for their oxygen to run out and force them to breathe in the contaminated air and die. It was then though that the doorway behind them, leading back to the staircase, slid open. They all wheeled round, snapping from their collective reverie to the figure of a monstrous silhouette in the dull light that almost had Sutler reaching for his weapon. Frank Horrigan stepped through the doorway into the room. It was the first time Sutler had seen him up-close. He towered over them, arms mottled yellow and built of pure sinew; he made Granite look like a raw recruit in comparison. Beneath his helmet though, Sutler saw a pair of tiny eyes scanning the room.

"Identify," he growled.

"Sergeant Granite sir," Granite stammered with an audible gulp. "What's go…"

"Do not let anything follow me, do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

And with that Granite moved swiftly past them into the lobby of the Oil Rig and the door sealed behind him. A few minutes passed, still trying to get to grips with Horrigan's cryptic instructions when another figure appeared from the staircase, a soldier in power armour, who seemed to stop dead at the site of the three of them in the room. After a moment of hesitation Granite begun to raise his weapon.

"Halt, identify yourself!"

There was a brief pause.

"Smith Sir… John Smith."

"What are you doing down here, Special Agent Horrigan has given us orders not to allow anyone past this room."

There was another tense pause. Sutler had begun to raise his own weapon too, he couldn't make out anything of the man save for a pair of blue eyes behind the visor on his helmet.

"It was him," Smith said finally. "Horrigan did this."

"What?" Granite sputtered. "What the hell do you mean soldier?"

"He sabotaged the reactor and in the case chaos released the FEV, the Project, into the air here. He's killed Dr Curling… and the President. There's a tanker docked with Oil Rig, he's going to use it to escape."

"The mutant bastard," Sutler yelled. Of-course it all made sense.

"We have no indication of that," Granite spat at Sutler before wheeling again on Smith. "How do you know this?"

"Who else could have done this?" Sutler snapped back at Granite before Smith could respond. "He was never one of us after Mariposa, all those black ops on the mainland, all that clearance given to a _freak_ like him. He's been infiltrating us this entire time and now, when we're so-close to achieving our goal, he's gone and killed us all! The tanker. He's probably working with the Chinks in San Francisco."

"This is fucking nuts," was all Autumn could manage. "But maybe your right? What else could do this to us? That's why the masks didn't work, the virus will have just got in through their pores…"

"No!" Granite barked. "We have orders and it our duty to question them. Not until we get confirmation."

"Everyone is fucking dead Granite!" Sutler roared. "How many officers do you think were in power armour? They're dead, the President is dead, my Mom is dead," his voiced cracked and he let out a short scream. "Oh God. Fuck."

"He's going to escape," Smith interjected. "Unless you help me take him down."

Granite looked back at Smith.

"Kill Horrigan? You're mad, we can't do anything without…"

"We're all going to die here anyway Granite," Sutler said. "Nobody's fixing the reactor. There's nothing to lose except a chance at justice if Horrigan escapes!"

Granite didn't respond he pushed past Sutler, dialling the switchboard on the phone. When nobody answered he roared and punch it with a crunch of metal on metal, leaving the imploded wall-phone left behind. Granite merely stood there, breathing deeply for a moment.

"Alright fine, fuck it." He looked around at them all. "I can't do shit with this, typical." He lowered his Yuma Flatts rifle mournfully, drawing instead a powerful Sig-Sauer 12.7mm handgun. "As if more rads were going to hurt that mutant freak."

"Same," Autumn offered. "With all the ablative coating on our armour this laser rifle isn't going to do shit."

He shouldered the weapon and drew his own, less impressive, P90c submachine gun.

"Stack-up on the door," Granite murmured. "Prepare to move on my signal. Three… Two…" He left massive pauses between each number. Sutler gripped the gauss pistol tightly in his hand. "One… One… fuck let's go."

The door slid open and they burst into the lobby, the wall of the Ready Room seemed to slide away in Sutler's vision, like a curtain on stage, to reveal the monstrous figure of Frank Horrigan. He was stood towards the back of the room. It was hard to imagine something like Frank Horrigan being nonplussed by a situation, monster or not he was the epitome of combat efficiency, but none the less he simply stood there as the first wall of fire impacted on his armour. Gauss rounds and heavy bullets alike struck against Horrigan's power armour, the guy Smith was packing a BOZAR – a deadly light support weapon. The lobby was filled with a tremendous sound of echoing gunfire. Horrigan himself managed a few bursts, beneath his arm he had slung some custom manufactured plasma weapon, technically illegal on the ENCLAVE it was another example of the privilege he had enjoyed and had abused. The sound if it firing alone was terrifying, a huge echoing roar of vibrant green energy which tore through the air and slapped against the wall of the lobby.

As a battle plan the whole endeavour had been poor, a product of tremendous fear, anger and desperation, they sat in the open plugging away at Horrigan, the sheer weight of the fire levelled against him preventing him from accurately responding in-kind. Smith was working on a console towards the back of the room and it was this that ultimately sealed their victory, from the floor and ceiling, dormant turrets came active, weapons immune to shock and fear let loose on the figure of Horrigan who managed another few bursts before he was subsumed. One by one, with nervous trepidation, they stopped firing at the husk on the ground ahead of them.

Weapons trained, they approached the figure on the ground, Horrigan's grunts and moans of pain reverberating around the room like the last desperate cries of a wounded animal. Sutler looked down at him, his own Gauss pistol trembling in his hands. Horrigan's armour was broken, whole sections blasted away into fragments that littered the ground him. It was a bewildering sight to see the giant felled, Frank Horrigan whom had beaten a deathclaw to death with his bare-hands, whose meaty palms could easily encircle even a bulky suit of power armour and send them hurtling across the room, now lying on the ground in his last throws.

"Courage… honour… duty… Semper Fi," the words came rasping from him, the mantra of a dying thing, as the beady black eyes behind the helmet closed for the last time.

"Jesus," Autumn gasped. "We just killed Frank Horrigan…"

"Fuck… I know," Sutler replied, that stunning fact seemed to have superseded the immediacy of the situation at-hand, for them at-least.

"Where's Smith?" Granite asked, looking around he spied the open doorway behind Horrigan and, crossing the space to it, let out a gasp of his own. Sutler and Autumn joined him and stepped out, jaws agape, onto the outer gantry of the Oil Rig. The visage of the tanker before them was enormous, the single largest object that they had ever seen. A single ramp ran from an open port on the side of its great black hull to the docking platform of the Oil Rig.

"What do we do sir?" Autumn asked.

"Let's just get on-board for now,"

Sutler felt his feet moving after Granite, but he didn't utter a word, it was like being drunk or under a massive dose of psycho. He moved purely on some internal instinct, the exact nature of which he wasn't consciously privy too. Inside it was a-lot like where they had been, tight metallic corridors lit by dim lighting. No sooner had they boarded the tanker than had the door sealed behind them and a great rumbling roar signalled that it was on the move. Sutler looked wildly back at the door they had entered and again to Granite whom just silently signalled for them to follow him. It was strange, to be somewhere he didn't know the way, even on the Oil Rig everything had been clear with maps and proper signage, on this great tanker though it was merely an elaborate warren of corridors, all deserted and leading nowhere. After much searching however, they found a doorway ahead, the dying rays of the evening sun shining visibly through it. Granite popped the seal on the door and they stepped through it, onto the aft deck of the tanker. Sutler's own breath caught in his throat.

In the distance was the Oil Rig, growing ever more distant with each passing moment, the monumental structure which had been his home and that of the Enclave for centuries. Four tremendous legs astride the ocean, maintaining beneath them the large cylindrical silo which held the Enclave decks. It was the first time he had ever seen the place with his own two eyes, first time he had ever noticed the gulf of an ocean that the place, and he, had sat in all this time. The Oil Rig had been a world of its own, especially to people like his Mom whom had never once left the shelter of its hermetically sealed walls. He could make out Vertibirds sat, un-moving, on the top flight deck whilst the four great faces, of figures Sutler did not know, cast passive looks from their perch on each of the four pillars out to sea.

It was then that the Oil Rig exploded, a great fireball of blinding white erupting from the lower decks. It spread upwards through the decks in quick succession as all the material on the Oil Rig, began to explode, every local fusion reactor, the oil that they had drawn up from the seabed. Occasionally an enormous eruption would emerge from a Deck, each signalling the blaze reaching an armoury and its great contents.

Sutler wasn't aware of when he had started screaming, or even if the shriek, stopping only by the necessity to breath, was even coming from his own mouth or just something primal in his head, some part of his own consciousness was dying. He felt separate from his body, divorced from reality, his conscious mind a reeling thing in a void of darkness somewhere only peripherally aware of the world going on outside. He felt himself collapse to his knees and was aware somewhere of Autumn casting his helmet aside and throwing up over the deck. The Oil Rig was gone, consumed somewhere beneath a plume if dark smoke and a tremendous billowing inferno that stretched from the epicentre out to sea. But Sutler no longer cared, he could no longer think properly as darkness tugged at the corners of his vision and he could bring himself to do nothing. The explosion had brought it all home, signalled finally what his brain had been trying to ignore for the past hour, his family was dead, the President was dead, the Project was over, the Enclave itself was over and some cruel machination of fate had placed him there to see it all literally explode before his own eyes. He collapsed onto his front, and as the surface of the deck took over his vision everything grew steadily darker until everything became black entirely.


	12. Part 2 (Navarro), Chapter 4

**27** **th** **June, 2242**

Sutler awoke with a spluttering gasp, on his back and in complete darkness; sucking in deep lungful's of air only to hack and cough loudly after each-one. He was still in his suit, but missing his helmet. As fuzzy sight gave way to clarity, the blackness became a room, a small cube built from dark and tarnished metal lit only by a mottled yellow wall lamp. He looked around the unfamiliar gloom, spotting a powerful figure approaching him. He went to reach for his pistol but his clumsy arm fumbled with his chest rig before the figure said.

"Sutler? It's Autumn."

Sutler let out a long sigh as the face of August Autumn loomed into view. Autumn jabbed the nozzle of a canteen towards him, aiming to pour it into his mouth, but Sutler lifted his arm and took it himself before shuffling back to prop himself against the wall. He took a long pull on the canteen, smooth and crisp water greedily gulped down until he had to pause again for breath.

"Where fuck?" He gasped.

"We're… on that ship, Sutler. Do you remember?"

He did remember, a powerful pulse of white light on a vast coean. He let out a sudden sob, making to raise his arm to his head before Autumn's own darted out and caught it.

"Careful sport," he said through a nervous, choking laugh. "You're about liable to cave your head in with that thing."

Sutler looked up at Autumn, catching his bloodshot and reddened eyes. He gulped and hung his head low, breathing heavily for a few moments.

"Where's the…" Sutler looked around, only to see the answer to his question lying close by him. Granite's helmet had been removed too, and he lay on his back, stirring lightly in unconsciousness.

"You ran out of air sport," Autumn said. "You and the Sergeant. Still had your suits sealed-up from…. If I hadn't been sick then Lord knows what would have happened to us."

"Only the Lord knows what will now," Sutler spat sourly. "What about Smith?"

"Don't know Sutler, ain't seen him with us and couldn't leave you guys behind to look."

"Fuck. We're on a boat," Sutler said simply, the realisation that they were the first people on a boat in centuries a hollow achievement. "Where is it going?"

"Couldn't tell you. This is the PMZ Valdez, I think, you remember it from San Fran?"

"Chinks!" Sutler roared. "Fucking Gook scum!"

"I doubt Horrigan was working with the Chinamen Sutler," Autumn sighed. "They trust other mutants about as much as us. Let alone enough to give one a working ship."

Sutler thought for a moment. The Valdez had been boarded by the USJF a long-time ago and strategically disabled as it could have sail itself to the Rig on auto-pilot if it had too. Sutler nodded finally.

"Yeah I guess. Horrigan could have come here when he was deployed in San Francisco against the Brotherhood of Steel. Got everything set-up then." He paused.

That was the end of the conversation, he handed Autumn back his canteen; Autumn took it and crossed to small room to find another space on the floor whitst Sutler just lay back against the wall and closed his eyes to draw deep, and increasingly rattling, breaths. A sense of dull numbness crept over him as he slumped, encased in his armour and removed from the physical world. He thought of his mother, of his last fleeting glimpse of her as she passed him on the staircase, oblivious to the significance of that last final glance. His grandfather, where-ever he had been, he found easier to picture, writhing in his wheelchair as the FEV invaded him. Or the President himself whom must have suffered the same fate, at his very desk in the most hallowed chamber in all of America. In-between it all was the blinding flash of light, the first fireball that had plumed from, not just the Oil Rig, but the very Decks of which that had been his home – his entire life. He was not entirely aware of his physical self, cold metallic fingers clasped around his face and something damp running down the sides of his it, and of barely registered chatter somewhere to his left. He just kept his eyes closed.

* * *

It was sometime later when he opened them again as something forceful impacted with his shoulder and sent him sliding down the wall. There was another crash a second later as Sutler was struggling to his feet. The source, it transpired, was Sergeant Granite, now fully mobile and weapon ready.

"Get up," he said coldly to Autumn, whom had also found himself newly awakened and sprawled on the floor. "We're moving out."

"Sir?" Autumn asked as he got to his feet. "What?"

"I said we're getting off this boat," the Sergeant seemed to have gained his second wind; he was cold and authoritative, and it spoke to something instinctual in Sutler that made him obey. "There will be time," he said slowly, pausing after a slight crack in his voice. "…for reflection later; we are in potentially hostile territory and need a tactical assessment."

Autumn made to scoff but wilted beneath a murderous glance from Granite whoshouldered his rifle to grab his helmet, as he did Sutler saw Granite's prized rifle had had both the pistol and fore-grip fractured by his hold.

"Where on this ship are we Autumn? Just off the aft deck?" He choked again on the word "Deck".

"Yes sir."

Making for the door, Granite seized the wheel on the bulkhead and twisted it so hard it came off in the hands; the door swung open, screeching on its ancient hinges, and he stepped into the corridor. Sutler followed him into a spartan corridor as dark as the room they had left. To their left was a door, light streaming through a grimy porthole, which Granite was already marching towards. He flung the door open and allowed a shaft of light in, which caused Sutler to squint before he followed him out onto the aft deck of the Tanker. Before them was, unmistakably, Chinatown San Francisco, traditionally American architecture clad in the poisonous characters of an hostile language and festooned with glowing paper lanterns. Sutler turned to shoot Autumn a look, the disdain not lost on him even without seeing Sutler's face. Granite was looking over the railing, coming back he shook his head.

"We could make the jump," he began. "But the jetty below is wooden, we'd crash right through it into the sea. We'll have to make our way through this thing. Keep your bearings make sure we're always on the port-side of the ship and get you weapons ready."

"Sir," Sutler began as Granite had already begun storming back to the door into the ship. "Me and Autumn hypothesised that the ship might be empty, on auto-pilot to collect Horrigan."

"Possible, quite likely even," Granite conceded. "Get your weapon ready."

They followed after him back into the ship. It was different from the Oil Rig, and yet painfully familiar in some-parts: water-tight bulkheads at intervals with knee-knockers, a high-ceiling that made home to a network of hanging pipes, wiring and ventilation ducts, and the familiar clunk of boot tread on metal floor. They hadn't gotten far, just turning a slight bend in the corridor when Granite raised his fist and they all fell immediately still. From an open doorway up-ahead, the flickering orange light of a fire could be seen spilling out into the corridor and from that same room the high laughter of two women.

"Pass me some more of that Jet," one of them giggled amid the sound of a scuffle. The other voice laughed.

"Okay okay Patti, but wait first."

There was a chink of glasses.

"A toast to Captain Meyers, the greatest Captain that ever sailed the seas."

It is hard to stealthily move in power armour, particularly on a metal surface, so they didn't try. They marched smartly with precision, in single file, down the corridor always looking ahead through the sights of their weapons. The two women in the room didn't seem to suspicious of the sound of people approaching, both sat in a pair of tattered and mismatched chairs around a flaming barrel as Granite marched first into the room before Sutler who took up a position at his left. The women simply look at them, one of them dropping some-kind of inhaler to the floor, failing to react to the coming events. Sutler targeted the one in-front of him, a slender creature in a jumpsuit, her hair plasma green and shaved at the sides. Crossing the distance he placed his foot under the puffy blue recliner she was sitting in and flipped it before then placing his boot on it to pin her between it and metal deck. Granite wasted no-time either, the other women was sat up-right in an old dining chair when Granite punched her and she toppled to the floor, laying motionless as blood oozed from a wound on her temple. He then nodded to Sutler, who took his boot from the chair as Granite seized the woman's head in a single-fist and pulled her towards the burning barrel.

Bringing her right up-against it, he paused for a moment, before deciding pressing her cheek against the hot metal anyway. She screamed loudly, flailing useless against him. Autumn simply stood by the door, lowering his weapon slightly. Finally looking closer at the two women, Sutler realised they weren't Chinese.

"Who are you?" Granite spat. "Identify yourself."

"Janet!" she cried.

"Do you work for Frank Horrigan?"

"No! I don't know who he is I swear!"

Granite placed her back against the barrel.

"Do you work for Frank Horrigan!"

"No please! I ain't ever been to New Reno. I'm telling the truth!"

"Do you work for the Chinese?"

"The Shi? No they have nothing to do with us. Please we've only just got back on-board, after the ship came back and the others left. We had nothing to do with it I swear."

"Others?" Granite asked blankly. "What others?"

"The guy dressed like you, the one who fixed the ship for the Captain. He left a while ago with some Vaultie's and tribals. Took off for I don't know where honest!"

Sutler just watched as a knot in his stomach became almost painfully tight. "Like us"? Vaults and tribals? Then it clicked, they had had prisoners on the Oil Rig, some from Vault 13 and some from a tribe in the north, and the other man…

"Who looked like us?" Granite asked darkly and Sutler could see the woman's face further screwed with pain as Granite's grip tightened.

"I don't know, wearing the same armour."

Sutler felt his blood run ice cold, his eyes widening in shock and anger.

"Where is the Bridge?"

"Down the corridor, take a right and then a second-left to the central staircase."

Granite released her, letting her lay on the floor as he brought his boot down. Sutler suddenly found himself breathing very heavily at the revelations. Then Granite looked up at him and at Autumn before marching towards the door, not even slowing as Autumn fumbled to get out of his way.

There could very well have been people in the rooms that they passed, but they didn't pause to check them, making a bee-line for the staircase that they had been told about. As they began climbing staircase they heard yet more laughter, coming from the top-level, and as their stamping boots foretold their arrival, someone above shouted.

"More people for the party!"

But as they came into view of the last flight the man looked surprised.

"Oh your back," he said before then catching sight of Sutler and Autumn bringing up Granite's rear.

He dropped the bottle he had been holding in his hands which shattered on the floor. Sutler however thought only of the room above, a rectangular one with the stairs placed against the port-wall, the other-side of the staircase had a railing but computer consoles were against it; that was their cover as fired from the staircase, the rest of the room was a shooting range.

Granite fired his rifle at the man, a burning flash of blue energy that struck him in the torso and sent him to the ground, electrical energy causing his nerves to convulse as smoke began to rise from his body. They took up a position on the stairs to fire over the console by the railing. The room really was a gallery, a large window to their right overlooking the ship was completely bare and the walls lined with console and equipment, down the centre of the room ran the main controls for the ship, the far end of which could probably have hidden a single person. A bunch of shocked, standing and static targets. Only one proved an actual threat who Sutler pinged immediately, a man at the back clad in leather wielding an actual Gauss Rifle.

After a few seconds of fire, most of the room was clear, a couple of people near the window had dived for the ground and found some shelter on the far-side of the console, firing rounds blindly over it. One was the slow blat of a 10mm handgun, the other almost silent. Sutler looked down at the floor around him and saw a small syringe.

"Needler pistol and a 10mm pistol," he said to Granite who nodded and stepped out from the stairs and into the room.

"It's kinder this way."

The voice came from behind the console and there was a soft thud and the sound of something hitting the floor. Then Needler pistol came flying over the console and skitted by Granite's feet.

"I'm the one you want," the same voice said stoically. "The Captain."

"Autumn cover the stairs. You stand-up!" Granite ordered.

"Autumn?" The voice came back. "Can't be the illustrious Colonel Autumn surely? No must be his punk as son."

There was a moment of silence before Sutler cried out in realisation, the knowledge of Autumn and the Captain's name giving only one answer.

"Captain Meyers? _Adam_ Meyers!"

"The very same kid, whoever you are? ECC drill-boys probably."

"What?" Granite asked Sutler.

"Meyers, the family's in maintenance. They live on Deck 11."

"That's _used_ to live their mister."

"Shut the fuck up!" Granite was already marching around the console.

"He's a Navarro techie," Sutler yelled. "A deserter!"

Granite had picked him up by his chest, slamming him into the back of the console. Meyers let out a grunt of pain, but then a laugh.

"You were all Undercover," he laughed. "He had free run of the place, released the FEV and then the prisoners just walked out of the Oil Rig. Right past _your_ post."

He laughed again but it was cut short as Granite seized him by the head and squeezed until there was a soft crack and a slump as Meyers lifeless form slipped to the floor. Granite flexed his fingers to dislodge a few chunks of gristle. He was looking down at the figure before he stomped on it furiously and then kicking it against the back of the console. He turned around and put his fist through the glass of the window and roared in anger. Sutler could feel his own face flush beneath his helmet and murderous fury in his arms, like being on Psycho back in the Conditioning Theatre but with the vision of the Oil Rig flashing in his mind. Only Autumn's cry stopped him from doing something destructive.

"Contacts!" He yelled as the sound of footsteps running up the stairs beneath them could be heard.

* * *

Granite absently kicked a body down the last flight of stairs where it hit the bottom with a wet thump. As Sutler followed him, he made a note to step on the body as he took the last step to hear something inside it break. On the wall ahead of them was painted "Baazar" and beneath it "Exit" with an arrow indicating to go left further down the port side of the vessel. They stepped out into a large open chamber, filled with rickety stands daubed with painted slogans and stacks of crates and wares. Though presumably once bustling, it was now clear and abandoned save for a man desperately trying to gather something into his arms at a stall. He dropped them in fear at the sight of Granite appearance, screamed, and made to run away before Sutler casually aimed his pistol and fired, sending the remains skidding across the deck in the distance. An open doorway ahead and to their left allowed a small shaft of natural light into the otherwise dimly lit room. Granite took to the doorway first, pausing for a moment in the frame. He shouldered his rifle.

"Don't shoot anything anymore," he said simply and stepped through the doorway out of sight. As Sutler followed him he was looking out at San Francisco and down the jetty at a swarm of Asiatic faces. To not raise his weapon and begin shooting fought against something primal inside of him, especially at the uniformed ones tightly clutching rifles half-trained in their direction. Granite was already at the bottom, walking right past them without notice and Sutler followed in-kind. He could feel their eyes watching him. They'd clearly came to respond to the chaos that had engulfed the Tanker but seemed reluctant to be involved further. As outsiders, the residents of the Tanker were presumably not under their protection, merely they were here to stop an overspill of violence into the city. Sutler swallowed, though his mouth was dry, and kept walking. They were headed down a long jetty that lead right into the streets of the city. As they passed the first row of guards, a group was huddled by the side and corralled by the Chinese, a mob of multi-coloured hair and mismatched clothing.

"That's them!" One of them was shouting. "They did this!"

The Chinese probably thought them as savage as Sutler did all of them.

Granite had stopped ahead to allow Sutler and Autumn to catch-up, he was scanning the city-front before them. Even Sutler had to stop to look. It was the first time he'd ever been in a real city before, even the most humble of buildings along the dilapidated waterfront towered over those he'd seen in the few rural locales he'd seen in his time on the mainland.

"What are we going to do now sir?" Sutler asked.

"Find shelter for the night, we need to work some stuff out." Granite said. "Then get back to Navarro."


	13. Part 2 (Navarro), Chapter 5

They'd been walking through the city for about half an hour and it appeared Granite had changed his mind, not that Sutler had the presence to ask him. The docks used by the Chinese had given-way to a large open market, there were so many of them; scuttling around like insects between the heaps of metal that made up the various stalls. For a man who spent great amounts of time sealed inside a suit of armour, claustrophobia was something Sutler had assumed he didn't experience, until now. The Chinese often gave them as much room as they could manage, but the crowds were so large and bustling that many didn't have a choice. A couple of Chinamen were roasting mutant-roaches over an open flame and that had ruined Granite's early notion of staying in the city. The Chinese were animals, just like they'd been told, and numerous enough that they might even be able to over-power three USJF soldiers.

Following Granite in single file, hurrying as fast as they dared through the market place. The crowds were teeming and they had to be careful not to crush errant feet or limbs beneath them as they walked forward. Sutler wouldn't mind a fight, anything at this point, but the Sergeant had told them not to engage. The crowds sharply dropped as they approached the end of Shi town and out in the more lawless realms of urban San Francisco beyond the Chinese security borders. He saw Granite turn as they walked beneath some great red archway and, seeing the Sergeant hold the look, turned himself. Twelve Shi guards stood down the road that they had left, an invisible escort that had tailed them through the city without their knowledge and Sutler actually felt worried. The urban environment was not their forte and more than ever he was glad that they hadn't stayed in the Shi Tow.

"Double-time," Granite growled ahead of them. "And weapons hot. You have permission to engage all contacts." It was the second-time he'd spoke since we'd left the PMZ Valdez.

* * *

We continued in silence through the city, San Fransisco had been a great city before the war – Chinese Colony aside. The buildings loomed high all around and Sutler felt his chest tight beneath his armour. His instincts didn't like it, too many heights and windows to hide a sharpshooter. But they moved fast and relentlessly. They few people they passed knowing not to interact, mainland trading caravans, punks like the people on the tanker and others gathered around flaming barrels for warmth as the evening gave way to night. Just navigating the bay was going to take them at-least a day unless they could find an intact bridge further south.

Sutler was exhausted, but not from the pace, power-armour doesn't let you feel tired. The wall inside him containing what had happened was threatening to burst under the pressure. He could feel almost involuntary movements in his arms and legs, lashing out at road-signs and bits of junk as they moved through the streets. He wanted to stop and tear these things apart. The Oil Rig was gone, destroyed before his very eyes along with everyone on-board. And they'd helped the man who'd done it escape, that's what the traitor Meyers had said.

"Here," Granite ordered, gradually slowing his pace. They were in a town along the coast called Linda Mar, the outskirts of small bungalows that had once been leafy, all-American, suburbs. Granite picked a house at random and pushed the door in and off its hinges. Nothing stirred within. The house was cleared, another empty husk of pre-war Americana. It had a decent view across the ocean through the broken windows.

Granite simply collaposed to the floor, his heavy breaths loud through his air filter. He'd been as solid as his namesake since the Oil Rig, confining all emotions to bark out short orders here and there and pull the group together. At-peace now, even his stoic front wouldn't last. Sutler took off his helmet and pulled back the hood of his undersuit to let his hair breath for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. It was damp and plastered to his scalp. He reached for his canteen and unscrewed the lid; he'd been making to pour a splash over his face but stopped as he caught the moonlight in the liquid just visible through the opening in the canteen. He'd filled it up that day, like any other, from the water cooler in his barracks on Deck 5. The water was precious, an artefact from a life now over. The life of the Oil Rig in a bottle really and Sutler screwed the lid back on.

"What era we going to do when we get back to Navarro?" Autumn offered into the silence. "What are we going to say?"

"What happened, obviously," Sutler said replied immediately. "What else is there to say, this must be a matter of record."

"They'll kill us," Granite grunt from his place on the floor. "Whoever is in-charge."

Sutler look incredulous, first at Granite and then at Autumn's nod of agreement.

"Someone will take the fall for this Sutler, the Enclave is built on retribution. We go there with our story and in two generations we'll be the Enclave's Benedict Arnold… you want that?"

Granite just sighed at the look on Sutler's face.

"Your too naive boy, Autumn," he looked at him. "He knows, probably seen it worse with the top-brass than I did at my level. Deck-snipes…" he sighed again.

"What are you saying," Sutler spat.

"I'm saying that you people think politicians fart sunshine and shit gold, they don't. Go on! You're going to say that's treasonous right?"

"I…"

"It's not disrespect Sutler, it's just the truth. We aren't governed by infallible moral puritans Sutler, we're governed by people. Whoever is in-command in Navarro, if they think court-martially and executing us, will solidify the rest they will convince themselves we're guilty… hell we aren't. We killed Horrigan." The final words seemed to echo around the small house, loud and clear.

"My Dad's at Navarro," Autumn said quietly. Everyone looked at him and he looked guilty. "I didn't want to say… but I can speak to him."

"So you'll live while Sutler and I take a bullet for the Enclave's sins."

"He could be…"

"No he couldn't, and you know it."

Autumn nodded slowly.

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Sutler yelled again. "We _are_ guilty and we deserve what we get for what we've done."

"The Enclave needs every man it has left!" Granite shouted, getting slowly to his feet. The armour might have made them equal, but Sutler could feel the great mass of person in that armour all the same. "There is nothing to be gained from confessing. We will carry this burden with us, and work it off ourselves in penance. Is that not enough?"

"Our families will be memorialised with a lie! What will they say? That the Oil Rig malfunctioned? They will be remembered with a lie that only we can refute."

Granite bit his lip.

"We can correct that mistake after our penance," he said finally. "On the dying breath of a life given to service."

"I won't let them kill you Sutler," Autumn interjected quietly. "It's as simple as that. Granite's right, my father has the authority to probably have me spared. He'll be one of the most senior officers remaining. But I know that man and he will have you killed if it means that the Enclave gets closure. I won't give him that satisfaction… or sacrifice you to him."

"I am giving you an order Sutler!" Granite roared.

"And I am asking you," Autumn said. "Your like the brother I never had Sutler, I'm not going to let them kill you for our collective guilt. Granite's right, we can repay our sins in-service. And whomever of us lives longest… can tell the rest the truth."

Sutler was silent, still for a moment, before curling his hands into fists and laying waste to an old wooden chair nearby – his screams of fury almost primal. He collapsed to his knees around the broken splinters and slammed his fists into the wooden floor until the concrete foundations were visible. Shaking, sweating and close to furious tears he stopped.

"Fine," he said. "A life of service to the Enclave. To make up for… this. Our sin."

* * *

It took four days to get back to Navarro. Skirting around the bay before following the coast back north. The towns were tiny, more like what Sutler was used to seeing: Anchor Bay, Sea Ranch, and Timber Cove. Enclaves of humanity that had once rode the line between the Pacific and the mountains. They had contemplated trying to find one of the great mainland caches existed on this coastline, colossal underground storage facilities that the government had built before the war to supply and arm the Oil Rig, but they didn't know where they were like Navarro.

They spent their nights holed up in the small abandoned settlements along the coast and walking along roads scarcely travelled. After their first night they'd mostly been silent, Sutler chastised Granite and Autumn over their drinking of their canteens and told them how he was keeping his own water in-memoriam. One night, as Sutler sat absurdly in the sand in his power armour the others had heard him singing for their small cabin and joined in.

"And after the Project, I'll live on the mainland.

And the closest I'll get to the ocean is the sand.

But I'll still look for the Oil Rig, by staring out to see.

'Cos is was where I was born, and my heart will always be."

The ditty written to memorialise the Oil Rig in the hypothetical future where it would be abandoned had now become its requiem.


End file.
